What’s happening with the business of advertising? What will the post-consumer economy look like? What is going on in sustainability?

Jelly Helm is the first to admit that he doesn’t know. But that doesn’t stop him from speculating about it in public, especially to audiences of excited listeners.

Last night, Jelly treated a number of us to a great presentation was full of existentialist introspection, personal narrative, and show-stopping poetry. He also gave us a sneak peek of the new work he’s done with the Oregon Council for the Humanities, and shared his excitement for Wikipedia, his newest client.

It was a fun-filled tour de force that could’ve lasted for a few hours more.

About this Transcript

If you were unfortunate enough to be sitting near me, you probably heard me typing very furiously, first in the audience, and then respectfully (hopefully) off to the side. Transcripts are important because they allow something amazing to be shared with a larger audience, but the resolution of experience decays as one abstracts the essence of the event through a digital means. I hope that this account preserves something of the excellent speech that was given last night.

I’m sorry there are not many images. I didn’t have a camera with me. Undoubtedly, there will be a thousand errors in punctuation and grammar. If it is something you enjoy doing, please feel free to point out any and all of them in the comments below.

Location

The event was held in the Cleaners at the Ace Hotel, a space often reserved for events such as this. Eric Hillerns, of Pinch. A Design Office., organized the event as part of AIGA’s Designspeaks.

“The Design Speaks series was developed as a voice for the creative community”, he began, “It was basically established to be a series of small talks intended to inform and inspire”.

How Eric met Jelly

Eric Hillerns met Jelly after his presentation at the 2008 Creative Conference.

“I knew that he was a high profile guy with arguably the best agency in the world”, said Hillerns, “Though our chat was brief, we had some common realationhips - and we left it at that”.

But later, while vying for the same buisness pitch - Jelly won it. Hillerns wasn’t pleased, of course.

“But I understood,” he admitted, “after all, Jelly was one of the more creartive strategists in the business”.

So Hillerns sent an E-mail.

“And at the end of the E-mail, I said - ‘We’re interested in watchng the brand evolve. We’re rooting for them, we’re rooting for you - don’t fuck it up’ .”

There was laughter from the aduience.

“Needless to say,” continued Hillerns, “he certantly hasn’t fucked up. I’m inspired by his approach to problems. He approaches them in a reverent manner”.

About Jelly Helm

Hillerns explained that Jelly Helm was a writer, designer, film director, creative director, and teacher. His clients include Imperial Woodpecker, Oregon Humanities, Infectious Diseases Research Institute and Wikipedia. He was formerly an executive creative director at Wieden + Kennedy, and founder of W+K 12, an experimental school inside the agency.

Jelly’s Presentation

Jelly Helm arrived at the podium. Behind him was the beginning of a PowerPoint screen that held an image of the word “Story” in a typewritten font. It looked like Jelly had typewritten his PowerPoint and scanned in each slide.

Jelly: Well, that certaintly was pleasant. I’m glad you all came. I didn’t expect you all to come, but thanks.

For me, all of my work, whether in design, writing, film directing, ect. — has been about the narrative; about story.

I left Wieden+Kennedy to take a sabbatical with no clue as to what would happen next. I took six months at first and then took one year because it was good to sit and think about why I do what I do for a living.

Tonight, before I got up here to give this speech, I saw Dave Allen. He said, “are you prepared?” And I said, of course, ‘this is my script’. This is me.

Jelly then tried to turn the slide, but it doesn’t work — it’s stuck.

Jelly: I hope you like this slide.

*laughter*

So, while they’re getting that, are there any questions you’d like to ask?

Audience: Where are you teaching at right now?

Jelly: I’m not teaching right now. I taught in two places, and then started a school at Wieden+Kennedy called 12.

*changes slides*

David Kennedy, who is kind of a crazy guy, has all of these little papers, which he cuts up and carries around with him. I used to be confused about why he did this, but now I’m doing it.

“This slide shows the time humans have been on Earth compared to how long the Universe has existed. It’s taken 12 billion years from the beginning of the Universe, and 5 billion since the beginning of the Sun. And then a tiny dash at the end shows us. Here we are, barely begun - the race of humans.

He showed the next slide, which was a picture of the Earth with the acronym “wtf” typewritten above it.

The Birth of the Story

The beginning of human life is inexplicable. There’s animals chasing you; you’re living in the cold without any clothes; picking foods that occasionally posion you….

And around 30,000 years ago we started doing something. We started telling stories. And people linked this up with the birth of the human spirit.

The reason we told these stories was to understand what was going on.

–

Karen Armstrong writes:

“We are meaning-seeking creatures.
Dogs, as far as we know,
do not agonise about the canine condition,
worry about the plight of dogs in other parts of the world,
or try to see their lives from a different perspective.

But human beings fall easily into despair,
and from the very beginning we invented stories that enabled us to place our lives in a larger setting,
that revealed an underlying pattern,
and gave us a sense that,
against all the depressing and chaotic evidence to the contrary,
life had meaning and value”.

–

We still use stories to make sense of the world, to:

-Create order
-To find our place
-To discover meaning
-To determine actions

“I think story is the operating system of being a human being.”

So…

Story.
Story.
Story.

I can’t remember what slide is next.

*click*

The slide changes to read “I am a storyist”.

So I’m a storyist.

I’ve played in a rock band, I’ve been an actor…

[But] underneath it all is a passion for telling stories and how they shape us and what they mean to us.

I Read Poetry

If any of you were at the Creative Conference you know I use poems. I use this particular poem to understnad my role - because, like you, I have the same chaotic experience.

This is the same poem that Willy Wonka quoted from. It is from the time of the Civil War.

—

We are the music-makers,
And we are the dreamers of dreams,
Wandering by lone sea-breakers,
And sitting by desolate streams.
World-losers and world-forsakers,
Upon whom the pale moon gleams;
Yet we are the movers and shakers,
Of the world forever, it seems.

With wonderful deathless ditties
We build up the world’s great cities,
And out of a fabulous story
We fashion an empire’s glory:
One man with a dream, at pleasure,
Shall go forth and conquer a crown;
And three with a new song’s measure
Can trample an empire down.

We, in the ages lying
In the buried past of the earth,
Built Nineveh with our sighing,
And Babel itself with our mirth;
And o’erthrew them with prophesying
To the old of the new world’s worth;
For each age is a dream that is dying,
Or one that is coming to birth.

– Arthur O’Shaughnessy (1884-1881)

—

Jelly’s recitation of the poem left a sort of stunned atmosphere in the audience.

“You don’t explain poems, right?” he finally said, “That’s the rule?”

“But sometimes I need help,” he continued, “I think it describes what it is like to experience the endless cycle of us as the leading edge of the universe.

The story that holds togehter for me is the story of growth - unfolding and exploding. And I think that’s what the world is about - unfolding and exploding and exploring new growth.

—

Spiral Dynamics Model - The Theory of Human Development

This graph shows a more analytical way to describe what Arthur said in his poem. This model was created by taking every model and puting them on top of each other. Maslow, and Jung, ect. Is there any pattern to them? This is mappnig human development over time?

At the bottom there is there is this tan area - this is pure terror - this is waking up as humans and having this rude self-awareness. And the next layer is purple. It is the idea that, ‘I exist and you exist - and if we cooperate, we can do things together’.

Red is our development of our sense of power an dominance. The idea that there are others our there and we have to kill them.

The blue layer is order and not letting violence be the top level of culture.

And then the next layer is the layer of science.

Then there’s green - what you think of as green sustainability - we need to protect the least of us. It is about relativism.

And beyond that is yellow. We’re entering this emergent culture and we’ll talk about more of that momentarily.

Sustainability

I’d like to talk about this word and what it stands for. It’s not enough.

The idea that my grandkids are buying the same sustainable couches as me makes me want to gag. I think we can aspire to more than that.

What would more than that look like? Yes-we can understand those values of sustainability.

The emergent culture is the green meme is a little suspicious of technology.

There’s an entire chart here of emergent culture, where multicultural/fairness/equity, technology/science, heirarchy/order, competition/power/ego, and trival/local — they’re all at odds with each other.

So right now we’re merging into this yellow culture which will embrace all of these values.

That’s kind of the typical thing that hppens.

I think we have our first emergent culture that’s happened right now.

*applause*

That’s an easy applause line. But it’s true. We see it here in Portland.

The Zoroastrians’ Visions

So I was watching Rick Steves on PBS a while ago. It was one of those travel episodes where he was in Iran. The first thing he says was, “they’re not Iraqis — they’re Persians!! They don’t speak Arabic, they speak Persian!” Like it was obvious.

I though that was interesting, and I wanted to learn more, so I went to Wikipedia, which is what everyone does now when they don’t know soemthing. There was a link to an article on Zoroastrianism, the oldest religious community of Iran.

Apparently the Zoroastrians had predected that the future of civilization would be so spiritual that humans would not even cast a shadow.

And this is not about IKEA making everything sustainable. It’s about soemthing else.

And it’s a great thing to say. People usually say ‘woah!’, when they hear this. But if you say it too much you begin to sound crazy.

So we seek out, in branding - the things that expand our own stories. The brands I who are successful are the brands who align with who we are and the story of the world.

I don’t know what to call them. People-powered brands. Because they’re not controlled by an agency. Emergent brands. Because they’re not controlled by a style guide. Post-consumer brands. Because many brands are based on a consumer way of happiness while not being actually okay for the earth.

Emergent Brands

-Apple
-Google
-Wikipedia

They allow us to experience our full humanity. Our full creativtiy.

Emergent Brands?

-McDonalds
-PhilipMorris

Are these Emergent Brands? McDonalds’ Stock keeps going up right now. I don’t really go into McDonanlds and I don’t get eat there, but those times when I go into McDonald’s, I find that the menus are a hundred times healthier than they were before. I can go in there and my kid can get celery sticks, a grilled cheese sandwich and an apple juice.

I also hear that they’re the number one distributor of apples in the country. Is this true?

(Someone in the audience confirms).

If you’re working with a company who can’t answe rhte question of ‘Who are you?’ and ‘Why are you here?’, then run far, far away.

Value vs. Profit, Abudance vs. Scaricity

It will never work if a company extracts more than it takes.

I think that successful post-consumer brands create value before they reap it, which is much better than abudance vs. scarcity - which is the opposite process - where a brand decides to reap value before creating it.

See “Conspiracy of Science - Earth is in Fact Growing” on YouTube. It’s a really hilarious video where a guy says, “these continents can’t be moving around over time! What are they moving on? The only solution is that the Earth must be expanding! Check it out. You should really watch this video.

—

There’s kind of a folly of being a human being.

Where do you create value — where is your abundance?

Where is your joy?

I’ll leave that thought with a poem. It’s a Robert Frost — one he wrote towards the end of his life.

This last one was sort of him throwing up his hands at the progression of humans.

“Yet for all this help of head and brain,
How happily instinctive we remain.
Our best guide upward further to the light,
Passionate preference such as love at sight.”

I was so suspicious of Bill Gates in the beginning.

His comment was “when I’m ready to give away money, “you’ll know about it”.

He was really a good person in the world. And he’s really pulled his mind to it.

My frame is growth.

We expand - and we’re an endless source of growth.

We’re all abundant, whether in storytelling or elsewhere.

The key is going to it from that frame of thought. Thinking, ‘Where am I abundant? Where am I good?’

Usually it is the opposite. One asks the self, ‘why am I not like other people? I need to do things like they do!’

This is why I had Philip Morris next to the McDonald’s logo in that earlier slide. When they bought a bunch of food compainies - I said, “good job, Philip Morris - I’d rather you be selling food than cigarettes…”

Large soft drink companies are having a difficult time selling that brown (explicative) any more — becuase it is posion — you drink that shit and you die.

You must instead ask, what is the prupose of your brand?

And if it is to continue lining the pockets of shareholders — then it is not the right purpose.

Audience: Who is your favorite philosopher?

I didn’t do school - so I don’t know many philosophers. I heard Bertrand Russell was pretty cool. I have a lot of people tell me that, so he’s probably great.

I like people who tell the truth and tell a good story so I can read about it.

I like anything that tells me a story that quiets my mind and opens my heart.

So I like Mad magaizine.

Audience: What makes you mad?

I didn’t feel very good today so I felt mad.

I’m not as good at being mad as I used to be.

Audience: What is it you push against?

Jelly: Nothing. I mean - it’s great - what is there to push agaisnt?

Audience: Will there be anything to be angry push agaisnt when we no longer cast a shadow?

Audience: It’s that the Myans that think it is the end of history.

Jelly: It’s hard to look at that slide of 13 billion years and think anything it intense or unordinary. Anything can happen. We haven’t been here for very long.

Growth is natural. How do you connect to it? You just have a good itme.

You know Danial Payne wrote that book Collective Intelligence. He wrote about how incentives dont’t work in this new work. I totally agre. You cannot invent a world voice. It is so counterintuitive. I think joy might be the solution.

Jelly: I dont know if anyone feel a little bit ripped off about ho tey were raised.

So story is how we connect our culture, for sure.

I think of the stories I grew up with. We’ve had 50 stories that have been carved in granite for 150 years and now they’ve all crumbled. I think, ‘these are bad stories!’.

Audience: When was the last time you had your hair blown back?

Jelly: Well, Obama, right? I feel bad about going on about Obama - but it is an amazing story.

Also, I’m a fan of Joseph Campbell. Joseph Campbell’s stories can be overlapped and they become a pretty good story. They’re about peopel falling down and getin back up…which is what all of humanity is about.

Are you laughing at me or with me?

The Infectious Disease Research Institute

Let me show you some work. I’m working with some organizations right now. One of them is this Infectious Disease Research Institute, which is a really bad name.

But it is a really neat story. Basically it is this guy name Steve Reed in Seattle who made this non-profit institute to prevent disease.

Then there’s a non-profit Biotech. There are some great people. Chris Hornbecker. These scinetists who are great.
And then there’s this company. (shows an image of the Wikipedia logo) And this is it - I cant beleive I’m working with this company.

Wikipedia

Wikipedia is written by 150,00 volunteers in the world. They have now assembled the lastest amount of material in the world. Jimmy Wales just wanted to start an online encyclopedia that anyone could write. It was called Newpedia.

He recounted his experience at Wikimania, a conference for wiki users. It sounded like a wonderful time.

“Did you know that inventor of the Wiki lives in Oregon?”, asked Jelly.

Some of the audience shook their head.

“His name is escaping my mind right now. It was…”

“Ward Cunningham!” I shouted from the audience. (Not only does the inventor of the wiki live in Portland, but he’s an extremely kind person too. Wickedly intelligent, approachable, and very involved in the local tech community).

Yes! Ward Cunningham. And Pete Forsyth, another Portland resident, is also a very dedicated contributor too.

Oregon Humanities

Here’s how I got involved with Oregon Humanities. They called me up one day and the first thing I thought was, “woah, did I forget to turn in an essay or something?” But instead they started telling me about what they do.

For instance, they told me about a series they have called “Think and Drink”, and I said, “uhh…”. So they were like, well ‘we’d like to talk to you about what the humanities are’. Humanities are no longer concerned with a white haired dude at the front of the auditorium telling us what to do.

So Jelly worked on the name. It got shortened to O. Hm, which is the sound of leanring a new idea. Oh! Hmm! or, O. Hm. Oregon Humanities. That’s part of the campaign. There’s more. Lots more. If you live in the Portland area, there’s no doubt that you’ll see more of it.

Wieden+Kennedy Amsterdam

We were there, and working on a campaign to get people to drink (a certain soft drink which will not be named here) during the holiday. Someone said, ‘how about we associate it with a holiday? Have people opening that drink and enjyoing it during the holidays’. And that campaign was so successful that they said, ‘next year we want to own Ramadan and Passover’. Own! Especially when one reads Joseph Campbell and gets to understand how important these traditional holidays are to the cultures they’re associated with. No one talks about the purpose of the buisness. They just want to make moeny.

I just guessed I looked under a rock a few too many times.

Early on, there seems to be an overview of the aesthetics of what we did visually, but not the purpose of it.
But,

when I work with clients who have a purpose — I LOVE it.

Like Timberland. If it is a good story to tell, I still want to tell it.

Audience: A year ago, at Cre8con, you were really down on Chompsky — and I didn’t read him becuase of that.

Helm: You can read him — I just dont think you’ll enjoy it.

Audience (Crystal Beasley): What do people most often get wrong about story?

Jelly: I don’t know.

What do you think?

I think about it when I watch a movie and they don’t have the heart piece right.

Audience: Some people don’t have a point to their story. In the end there’s nothnig to gain from it.

Jelly wrapped up his speech after that and got a lot of applause. It had been an excellent evening.

There was also some nice wine and beer. Thanks to those who served the crowd, 52Ltd, AIGA, Designspeaks, and everyone who attended.
—-

About the Transcriber

Amber Case is a Cyborg Anthropologist and new media strategist living in Portland, Oregon. She currently works at Wieden + Kennedy and tries to participate in as many tech and design events as possible. Her clients range from small to large companies, and she can be contacted through Twitter at @caseorganic, or through E-mail at caseorganic [at] gmail [dot] com.

About 52 Ltd.

52 Ltd. is Portland’s homegrown matchmaker of talent and employers in the arena of creative services. They received recognition in the 2008 and 2009 lists of Fastest-Growing Private 100 Companies by Portland Business Journal.

52 Limited provides contract freelance employees, full-time placement and custom project teams to a diverse client roster which includes: advertising agencies, design houses, interactive firms, brand marketers, health care organizations and others. For more information on how 52 Limited can help you find work or find talent, please visit
http://www.52ltd.com

About Designspeaks

The Designspeaks series, developed by Portland AIGA and in partnership with 52 Limited, showcases the most intriguing designers in the Pacific Northwest. Some of our guest speakers in this quarterly series will be stars and some will have mana
ged to maintain a lower profile, but we can assure you; all will challenge you to think a bit differently about design and its impact on community. We’re continually tweaking this series as an intimate venue for the creative community to connect to others, to see what they are doing and how they’re doing it. There is no specific format for Designspeaks. Basically, it’s a series of small talks gathering intended to inform, inspire and engage.

—–
Thanks much. Please leave comments below if desired.

Let me preface this blog post with this simple phrase - “We had to do this”.

Hence, the following sound byte.

 

 Grmfwklsnaxp [0:59m]: Play Now | Play in Popup | Download (192)

History

Grmfwklsnaxp is a concept that is becoming increasingly important. Since its first incarnation only a week ago, it has increasingly grown in the field of AWESOME.

As Grmfwklsnaxp reaches a plateau of importance, it may begin to enter the vocabulary of everyone around you.

Grmfwklsnaxp is VERY Important

In this case, it would be best not to look ignorant.

This is why It is important to understand how to pronounce the word Grmfwklsnaxp. But we need your help. Well, specifically, we need @mettadore’s help. But since he’s not here right now, we’re left to our own defences.

Thanks for listening.

Where are you from? What kind of work do you do?

I’m your stereotypical fast-paced ‘East Coaster’ from the NYC/NJ area but have been fortunate to have traveled all over the world, and have lived in a few different cities in the US — and abroad — over the years.

Currently, I am the Founder and CEO of Acclimedia, a consulting firm focused primarily on online brand adaptation, helping clients acclimate their products/services and customer experience to the web environment. We take a holistic approach to this process in order to preserve — and maintain — the integrity and essence of the brand online. I also serve as President and Chief Marketing Officer for Jelly Labs, the creative agency and market research arm of Acclimedia, specializing in campaign stickiness.

As a person who thrives on collaboration, I also founded Idea Brew, a think tank for fellow entrepreneurs that churns out ideas, copy and design for start ups and small businesses, where I act as the Creative Director (but that’s just a fancy title for ‘Do-It-All Creative Grunt Worker Extraordinaire!’). As if that weren’t enough, I also blog at Jelly Flux.com, covering marketing, technology and the social web, am a contributing writer for Green Options Media on all things green, renewable and sustainable from fashion to fuel, and recently accepted another writing gig for Triple Pundit adding political review to my writng repertoire.

Lastly, I will also be hosting a weekly podcast in 2009 and have a couple of other start up ventures in the works as well. Needless to say, I’m very busy but still manage to find the time to Twitter!

How did you first hear about CyborgCamp?

With my immersion (or more aptly, submersion!) in the digital world, I’ve had an increasing interest in HCI (Human Computer Interaction), and was seeking to network with others in this area. A Twitter search on the topic led me to tweet from @CyborgCamp, and after a quick scan of the posts and interactions, I began following immediately. Through @CyborgCamp, I have been able to connect with several interesting, intelligent and savvy people from in and around the Portland area — especially Bram Pitoyo, with whom I have sparked riveting, thought-provoking discussions about the semantic web and branding.

I am always seeking kindred spirits and like-minded innovators for collaboration, and I thought that if the people with whom I had connected on Twitter were representative of those I would meet at Cyborg Camp, I knew I had to be there. Being able to interact with these folks in person is so exciting, and I can only imagine the energy that will be emanating from their erudite minds. I must also give a shout out to Tyler Sticka, yet another Portlander with whom I’ve had the pleasure of interacting through Twitter, as I was completely blown away by the logo he designed for CyborgCamp. It’s absolutely brilliant in its simplicity and manages to effectively juxtapose the human and machine elements in a meaningful — and engaging — way. Talk about stopping power. And, of course, you, Amber, whose insights on a variety of topics always leave me pondering the philosophical elements of this space. I continue to be amazed by how Portland seems to be a hotbed for such an enlightened group of individuals and am looking forward to meeting everyone in person.

What is your dream ‘future technology’? If there was anything you could change about the current state of technology, what would it be?

I’m a total geek so I have several dream ‘future technologies,’ but in this case, environmental consciousness wins out, and I would love to see groundbreaking advancements in renewable energy become a reality, finding innovative ways to harness wind and solar power, eliminating our wasteful dependence on fuel and its harmful effects. Of course, as someone who grew up with Star Trek, The Next Generation, and an old school first-person adventure gamer, if I had to choose a more frivolous dream technology, it would most definietly be a virtual reality chamber similar to that of the Holodeck.

The one thing I would probably change about the current state of technology is the ‘on all the time,’ ‘always wired’ mentality [and applications that perpetuate it]. It’s great to be connected, and were it not for technology and the web, I would not have been able to meet the people from around the globe who have profoundly impacted my life, but I think it’s missing a human element that respects — and facilitates — offline/’unplugged’ experiences and personal growth. Our brains, cognition, and capacity for learning are increasing at staggering rates as a result of rapidly advancing technology, but what about the intrinsic human qualities that separate us from machines? I feel that those are getting lost in the process, and in some cases, diminishing in value. I think that this is a critical issue to be addressed with the Web 3.0 movement, which is being dubbed ‘The Semantic Web’ or ‘The Human Web’ by some. Marta Strickland recently referred to it as ‘The Relevant Web’ which I think ties in well with another issue of the current state of technology — too much information. In my ’spare time,’ I am working on a theory as to whether accessibility of information enhances or detracts from our relationships, or to take it one step further, does our relationship with that abundance of information enhance or detract from our human-ness?

What is the tech scene like in New York? Do you attend many tech events there?

It’s hard to say. In any city where there are mass numbers of people, there is always something brewing in tech, and NYC has been home to many Web 2.0 types of expos and the like. It’s a hub for gathering people from all over the world, so it’s an attractive spot for events, but the scene itself tends to veer more toward the social realm of the industry than deep into the geek sector. And those with successful tech start ups tend to migrate west to Silicon Valley and other more booming tech ecospheres.

Running several companies with clients — and vendor partners — throughout the world, I don’t have the luxury of attending as many events as I’d like. That’s one of the reasons I am continually exploring new technologies for participating remotely without sacrificing the experience, or being able to benefit from the key learnings just as I would as in-person attendee. Obviously, nothing can ever truly replace physically being at an event, amongst a group of people collaborating and sharing ideas, but I think that there are ways to bridge the virtual and physical worlds to make it advantageous for remote viewers to participate, share in discussions, and watch it happening real time. Pop!Tech did this very effectively with the live stream for their recent conference. While there weren’t any participatory applications to join in directly, the quality of the video was top notch, allowing you to substantively connect with the speakers and subject matter, and you could supplement the experience via sharing tools like Twitter. There are a few events where I think it’s important to attend in person; I am planning to attend SXSW in Austin, TX in March, and possibly Interactions09 in Vancouver in February.

Have you ever been to an un-conference before? If so, which conference? How was your experience?

Yes, I have attended a few unconferences, and I prefer them to big, splashy events because the intimate setting and smaller, thematic-driven groups allow for participatory learning rather than having so-called ‘expert’ speakers pontificate to a large group. The result is always inspiring and I find the experiences expand my views on a subject and enrich my thinking much more than linear, highly structured formats; plus, you are able to feed off the energy of the participants, who typically are very passionate about the topic. There’s much more of a community feel and sense of ownership to the material because it was self-created, where each participant plays an instrumental role in the process instead of watching a series of slides and taking notes. I think unconferences also stimulate action more so than traditional events, because you are excited and inspired to start applying your newfound knowledge and put your ideas into motion.

What do you think about the future of entertainment, branding, online media? How has your world been affected by new networks such as Twitter?

I think the future of branding has many challenges as brands tend to get diluted in the oversaturated web space. And I am of the thinking that not all brands need to — or should — have a digital presence.

Entertainment, on the other hand, is significantly augmented by technology, and is on the precipice of expansion in a variety of different areas. In addition to the rich visuals and advancements in CGI, more traditional network programming is able to connect viewers with their favorite TV show, or even characters with web-enabled services and extras. Even movies are enhanced by using the web to draw users into the storyline where they can make a personal connection with the film. But, in my opinion, the future of techtainment is with the continued growth of podcasting, iTV and web film-making. Major, capital-driven networks no longer control the market or drive the content. Anyone with a video camera and a dream can penetrate the space, and some of the most popular programs are web shows that are able to reach a global audience thanks to the power of the Internet medium, and even gain the exposure of mainstream media previously reserved only for big budget film houses.

Online media is another area where oversaturation makes it difficult for many new products and services to rise above the clutter, and for platforms to sustain long-term. I think in order for the online media space to advance, it needs to be streamlined, sourcing content better for relevancy and audience, and built to evolve with its users’ needs/wants/behavior/usage. A living, breathing architecture will be critical for maximizing the value of online media, and creating a vehicle for meaningful interactions that become an inherent, consistent — and active — part of the user’s daily life [with tangible impact] vs. a distraction or passive activity that wanes over time until the next ‘hot hit’ comes along. The ‘throw spaghettic against the wall to see what sticks’ method doesn’t scale. If Web 2.0 is analagous to the ‘classoom,’ Web 3.0 is the real world opportunity to put those learnings into action.

Twitter has dramatically impacted my world in a positive way. Save for the distraction and source of procrastination it can sometimes be, it has become a daily (read: hourly!) go to resource for real time knowledge sharing, product reviews, market research and even local, national and international news. It’s information with a pulse. And it has become an important part of my routine from my daily good morning exchanges with friends I’ve made to checking in with the Twitterverse on a myriad of subjects throughout the day — from their insights on project-related/client issues to their thoughts and experiences with new gadgets — even recipes and restaurant recommendations. Just about everything that touches my life makes its way into my tweetstream.

How have you built your Twitter network? What rewards have you received? What do you find most difficult/annoying about Twitter?

I am a firm believer in using Twitter to build relationships. I take pride in my network and value my connections. And I’m proud that I have been able to build such a quality network of amazing individuals each of whom bring something unique to my tweetstream — and to my life. I built my entire network organically, using Twitter search on keywords of interest to me, connecting through @ replies to individuals connected to those I follow, and by returning the follow to those who have sought me out through similar means. I always read a person’s bio, visit the link to their blog or website and read at least 3 pages of their posts before I follow. I take it very seriously and do not use auto follow scripts or try to inflate my followers. I prefer to keep my network small with even ratios of followers/following as I believe that’s the only way you can develop — and nurture — the one-on-one interactions that drive meaningful exchanges and encourage sharing.

I have made professional contacts, built lasting friendships, secured new opportunities and been exposed to new cultures through my Twitter community. In fact, my overseas partner is someone whom I connected with via Twitter, expanding my services into the European market with a creative shop in London. I will also be co-hosting a podcast with another Twitter contact and am collaborating with others on a new venture. Not to mention the personal friendships I’ve built that have come to mean a great deal to me.

Without question, the most annoying thing about Twitter is the spammers, self-promoters and get-rich-quick schemers that appear to be multiplying in droves, as well as those who are obsessed with their number of followers, using it as a misguided measuring stick for their popularity or ‘influence.’ I have always contended that the true value of Twitter is in the relationships, and the aforementioned groups are only interested in advancing their own agenda. It’s a megaphone for them vs. a sharing tool to spark two-way communication. Their misuse and flagrant disrespect for the network detracts from the experiece and devalues the service. I’ve become adept at spotting (and avoiding) the culprits, but it requires continual contact clean up to maintain a quality, spam-free community — time that could be better spent engaging with people who actually want to learn and share with you.

What is your presentation style like? What would you like to see discussed at CyborgCamp?

I recently ditched PowerPoint and any form of canned slides when presenting to clients or speaking at events, which has proven to be a much more creatively enriching experience for me — and my participants. By not stifling the flow of creativity with a highly structured set of materials, I’ve found that the group is more open and expressive, and that better ideas are generated. So, I am going to apply that same principle to CyborgCamp, allow the dynamics of the group to guide my talking points, and put a raw perspective out there for consumption, dissection, discussion and ideation.

I don’t want to limit the flow of creativity or expression by mandating a list of topics but I’d love to spark a discussion around what I referred to earlier in the interview as ‘The Human Web’ to get the group’s perspective on the interconnectivity of it all and how to effectively bridge/honor the dual faceted-ness of that interaction.

Connect with Gennefer

http://twitter.com/acclimedia
http://www.acclimedia.com/

Sites like Smashing Magazine are always releasing free icon sets. However, I wanted to make something custom for OakHazelnut.com. With this in mind, created the following icon set for my Twitter, Flickr and RSS profiles.

Download Icon Set .eps

The set is free to download and free to use. However, if you use the icons in a commercial project or on a client site, please link back to http://oakhazelnut.com somewhere on the site. A big thanks to Bram Pitoyo for helping out with the shading. Enjoy and happy socializing!

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Amber Case is a Cyborg Anthropologist and Internet Marketing Consultant from Portland, Oregon. You can follow her online @caseorganic.

In the analog state of PR, people would have to manually check out how many times a brand was mentioned in newspapers by hiring a bunch of people to clip out the actual articles from the newspapers. If one’s clippings were really great that week, they’d have a big stack of paper.

Clipping New Media:

Some of the first industries to capture digital data real-time were hedge funds and other financial firms. They used something that resembled an intelligence dashboard — where different streams of data were needed to make complex decisions. The dashboard allowed users to see many different stocks at once, and companies were able to create a sort of proto-feed that showed many different ecosystems of data at once.

Intelligence Feeds Today:

Now, services like Netvibes and Yahoo! pipes can be mixed together to offer companies real-time intelligence feeds that show what their competitors are posting on their blogs, what people are saying about them on Twitter, and their overall online presence — all in one place.

Making these intelligence dashboards takes time and research, but the value added (not to mention the time saved) by the implementation of a centralized data source is immense. Also, it’s powerful enough for agencies that manage multiple clients, because the entire system fits into one browser window with a series of custom, labeled tabs.

Currently:

All brands have an analog version of this, and some have a digital one — but all brands need it. Google Alerts is a temporary solution that is gritty and granular. It does not have the customization capabilities that Yahoo! Pipes and Dapper have. Intelligence dashboards are capable of handling the data generated by global and local brands as well. They can monitor Flickr photos, news items, blog posts, ect. Basically, any piece of dynamic content that moves online.

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Resources

One of the best brand managers out there is Portland’s Dawn Foster. She has a collection of excellent resources (like Yahoo Pipes and RSS Hacks) on her blog, Fast Wonder. She’s actually the first person who introduced me to Yahoo! Pipes.

Convergence culture has moved swiftly from buzzword to industry logic. The creation of transmedia storyworlds, understanding how to appeal to migratory audiences, and the production of digital extensions for traditional materials are becoming the bread and butter of working in the media. MIT’s Futures of Entertainment 3 once again brings together key industry leaders who are shaping these new directions in our culture and academic scholars immersed in the investigation the social, cultural, political, economic, and technological implications of these changes in our media landscape.

The speakers and audience will be a mixed industry and academic crowd, and the diverse topics grouped together will give the conference both broad coverage of the new media and entertainment space and deep engagement across industries and disciplinary boundaries. This year’s conference will work to bring together the themes from last year - media spreadability, audiences and value, social media, distribution - with the consortium’s new projects in moving towards an increasingly global view of media convergence and flow.

Topics for this year’s panels include global distribution systems and the challenges of moving content across borders, transmedia properties, franchising and world building, comics and commerce, social and spreadable media, and renewed discussion on how and why to measure audience value.

The conference is on the 21th and 22nd of November at MIT. It works around a talk-show style model with panelists participating in a moderated discussion. Over the last two years this produced great, thorough treatments of the subject matter, getting industry and academic speakers together but avoiding product pitches. For a sense of what to expect, you can check out the site from last year’s event.

This will be the third conference of this kind.

Confirmed speakers for this year’s conference include: Javier Grillo-Marxuach (The Middleman), Alex McDowell (Production Designer, The Watchmen), Kevin Slavin (Area/Code), Donald K Ranvaud (Buena Onda Films), Amber Case (Cyborg Anthropologist and Social Media Consultant), Mauricio Mota (New Content [Brazil]), Alisa Perren (George State University), Amanda Lotz (University of Michigan), Sharon Ross (Columbia College Chicago), Nancy Baym (University of Kansas), Alice Marwick (New York University), Vu Nguyen (VP of Business Development, crunchyroll.com) with more to come.

Thanks to Joshua Green of MIT’s Convergence Culture Consortium for hooking me up with this excellent opportunity!

On Sept. 4+5 an interdisciplinary thought-leader event will hit Portland. The name of the Conference is Inverge: The Interactive Convergence.

What is Inverge?

An interdisciplinary event that focuses on the convergence of media platforms, of virtual + physical, content + advertising, and corporate content + consumer-generated content.

The presentations are high-level, informative and conceptual, pointing the way toward the future and facilitating advanced professional development.

How does it work?

Inverge brings presenters and attendees together from a variety of professions and disciplines to explore changes and opportunities presented by the increasing digitization of media, the democratization of distribution and the proliferation of connectivity into new areas.

Cyborg Anthropology

As a Cyborg Anthropologist, I am very interested in this conference. I’ve been studying convergence culture for as long as I can remember. It is one of the most unique and challenging subjects that has ever struck humanity.

Steve Gehlen, Inverge organizer and founder of the Internet Strategy Forum invited me to speak at the event. I’ll be presenting a lighting talk on Friday, September 5th at 1Pm.

A Ten Minute History of Technological Compression

From Telephone to Tweetup: an abbreviated history of technology and social exchange.

Presentation Summary

The invention of the telephone ushered in an era of ‘on-demand’ social connection. These conversations were freeing, but were still limited to location and time. As communication technology matured, telephones became detached from their cords and were allowed to travel with their users. This detachment from location allowed conversation to happen in more times and more places.

As the amount of time and space between nodes of connection decreased, the intersection of rapid news methods such as blogging, mobile technology, and chatrooms begin to merge. This convergence allowed dramatic increases in the ability to rapidly convey information to others. Instead of engaging with one person at a time, many are now capable of talking at once. No where is this more prevalent than on Twitter. It has found ways to connect communities, stave off suburban isolation, and warn of earthquakes before medical help can access them.

Other Presentation Topics

Portland’s Scott Kveton, Chairman, OpenID Foundation, VP of Open Platforms, Vidoop.

You can view the rest of the featured speakers on the Inverge Website.

Joshua Green, Research Manager, Convergence Culture Consortium at MIT.

Renny Gleeson, Global Director of Digital Strategies, Wieden+Kennedy.

Registration

If you haven’t already, you can still Register for Inverge.

All Inverge 2008 paid registrants will receive a complimentary copy of the JupiterResearch report entitled Media Trends: Understanding Change Catalysts, published earlier this year. This represents a $1,500 value. If you happen to be a company, this report will probably be very useful to you.

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Thanks for reading Hazelnut Tech Talk! If you’re interested in continuing the conversation, feel free to comment on this post. You can follow me online through @caseorganic or E-mail.

Today at 2Pm, all of the members of Portland Advertising Federation’s Colaboratory program presented their final marketing plan to Sameunderneath, a local sustainable clothing company.

Team Lattice showed a 5 minute video about their experiences before delving into the presentation.

The Lattice Presentation

• Research and Strategy
• Digital Brand Experience
• In-Store Branding
• Spreading Awareness
• Experiental

The Types of Sameunderneath Buyers

• Change Agents
• Enlightened Rebels
• Movers and Shakers
• Established Pioneers

Some of the brilliant ideas they came up with were as follows:

• Consumer Education: hangtags with information about the company’s values and the clothing ingredients and creation process. This will allow the consumer to really interact with the history of each piece of clothing.
• Stickers that can be written upon, to generate content for ideas — to spread the sameunderneath brand. Biodegrade nontoxic stickers.
• Chalk wall poetry can then be put on the walls of buildings with the sameunderneath.com logo at bottom - generated from Stickers #colab
• Projecting comments from a live Twitter feed about the Sameunderneath product on the catwalk of a Sameunderneath fashion show in LA. Sponsored and attended by socially-conscious, high-profile musicians.
• Branding on the inside of the clothing, so that wearers can lift their shirts to show, indeed, that they are wearing Sameunderneath. (Serves as an advertisement for photo opportunities, and a chance to show off nicely toned Yoga-abs?).
  • Flyers
  • Website relaunch
  • Outdoor wallscapes
  • Magazine
  • Documetnary Series
  • Sameunderneath Film Festival
  • 30 second Promotion
  • T-Shirt Challenge
  • Banner Ads
  • Pioneer Square Gallery

The Sameunderneath Target Market:

“People who give a Damn”
And for people who love music——>Advertising on Pandora.com”

Audience Interaction

Lattice team members ended by handing out stickers to everyone in the audience, saying, “Please, finish the statements on these “biodegradable, non-toxic stickers” and place them in locations that are poinigiant (and

Ryan Christensen, Founder of Sameunderneath said, “this idea is genius…(holds up the stickers with fill-in blanks) …when I first began Sameundenerath

An LA Resident Responds to the Sticker Idea

I was live blogging the Colaboratory Presentation as it happened, and I received a reponse to the stickers from @willtorres from Los Angeles, California.

@willtorres: “@caseorganic yeah, i love the stickers idea a lot. i was going to imitate a project i found with stickers throughout the city.”

Looks like their idea will be a great success.

—————–

Team Kiwi Presents

Luke Rolka:
Sameundeneath started as an educational curriculum…an idea. Now it has transformed into this business model. This socially responsible business.

“What we want to do is take this and make it big — move it national”.

“We want to take Saemunderneath and turn it into a model of super awesome success”.

Bryan Davidson: Even as Samunderneath grows, there are certain values that must stay the same.

Bryan Davidson’s words were, true, charismatic, thoughtful and provocative, which mirrored exactly the bullet points on the screen.

“You’re not just selling clothes, you’re selling a value system.”

“It is important to keep things small while thinking large. So we propose a new role of Community Director, because the world needs more Ryans.”

Luke Rolka: Consumers these days are really looking for ways to engage in a brand.The director is taking the Sameunderneath values and living and breathing them…becoming the representation of the brand. here in Portland. Then they can take that knowledge and adapt it to a city that they’re going to be running, and see how they can do it there.

Christine Vo: Sameunderneath is known very well in portland right now, but we want to take that internationally.

The T-Shirt Challenge

A way for designers to really get their name out there and show off their work.

Film Festivals, Lecture Series, Art Shows, and a Magazine

This was a decidedly different take then the music /urban street appelation basis of the Team Lattice presentation.

Founding of a Corporate Magazine, each zine with region focus, showing what each of those locations are doing with their local community and the Sameunderneath brand.

Then Unveiled a New Website: in which each of the pages have great design, Documentary Series, Philosophy, Community. “Get Involved” tab.

“What would you say to the world if you had 30 seconds to speak your mind?”
Rebels are encouraged to speak their minds on any subject and submit the video to the Sameunderneath website.

Flyers Embedded with Seeds

In order for you to grow, you have to engage with the customer. How better than by growing pieces of paper? Flyers embedded with Wildflower seeds. They can be buried in the backyard and have the words, “grow your paper and your ideas”.

“Each city’s flyer will have a different skyline, and we will try to get local artists to do the images for them. At every point, it is important to get local artists to do things for the compay…all these things create sustainable organic growth frr your company.

Then at the end presented a marketing plan roundup which included:

~.——————–

Now Ryan has to choose. It is a very intense decision. He leaves to use the restroom.

Sameunderneath had a 1.5 million growth revenue last year. The company is interested in affordable and efficient marketing methods for growth.

It all comes down to the customer base. Are they artsy and into film? Are they into music? The marketing plans seem to target slightly different demographics. Lattice presents an urban grassroots music-base, and Kiwi defines the demographic as a more thoughtful, artsy, film-loving creature.

The success of either marketing plan all comes down to what best fits the true demographic of Sameunderneath consumers.

To Team Lattice: One of your best points was the paper; that pamphlet that has the story that goes into the stores to educate the people. Something that each floor sales staff can read to better understand the product.

To Team Kiwi: We’ve been doing flyers since the beginning of the company, but now we’re starting to do personal invitations. It’s a way to say, we don’t want to waste your time with pieces of paper. With a private invite, people have to go out of their way to ask their friends to attend an event, and it is more word of mouth than objective and detached.

Ryan: This is a really difficult decision. They’re two different plans.

I really liked the fact that Team Lattice had the fill-in sticker that told the story of the brand. At the end of the day, it’s a new version of “hello my name is” Things like that are so personal and so engaged with community. It could go anywhere and be filled in with the culture of that community, that space.

To Team Lattice: I thought you ladies did a great job and restrained it to what really matterned.

In addition, your presentation’s marketing recommendations started small and then went big, just like how Sameunderneath should be growing. If you had shown me the magazine in the beginning, I would’ve discounted it right from the start. Do you have any idea how much it costs to publish something like that?

To Team Kiwi:What I really liked a lot was Bryan. You were kind of the leader of the pack. It wasn’t a presentation—you were being you.

The Decision

Ryan buys enough time to think, and then makes his decision. It is Team Lattice. But he points out that he doesn’t want to make a decision at all, because both teams came up with exceptional ideas.

“I would like each and every one of you to E-mail me,” he says, “and each of you to come to visit my creative team. I want both teams to be there to put in opinions and voice their two cents.”

The Colaboratory Sameunderneath Discount

Ryan added that, “Between now and the end of the month—everything in the store is $20 from now until the end of the month. Just let the store staff know that you’re a member of Colab and this discount will be available to you”.

Final Thoughts

According to Malcolm McCullough, author of Digital Ground, “Design is the Product”. Design is what people experience, what they see…all text, all seen and unseen material. It is that Psychology of space that design induces that makes a person feel positively or negatively about a space or thing. Online voluntary communities need a base under which to interact. They cannot be forced into acting voluntarily. They must weave themselves into the brand’s story.

I believe Team Lattice did this the best, because they created three distinct and affordable ways in which consumers could weave themselves into the brand’s story while helping to tell that story. The hang tags describing each piece of clothing and the company’s philosophy, the fill-in stickers, and the concert were all integrating factors that weaved the brand into the lives of the consumers.

It has been an amazing experience watching the #Colab members interact with each other and their agencies. I can’t wait to watch how they develop in the future. I’ve never seen such a dedicated and intelligent group of designers work so hard on a project before. Kudos to everyone. Team Lattice and Team Kiwi will go incredibly far, and soon.

~.—————————————

About the Colaboratory Internship Project

Sponsored by the Portland Ad Federation, the COLAB project believes that “Interning at 1 agency is so pre-millennial”, and takes a different route in inspiring the creativity and professional education of its interns.

From the Colaboratory website: “COLABORATORY takes place over 6 weeks in Portland, Oregon. 10 participants are selected and individually paired with 3 of the 11 agencies based on their strengths and interests. Interns spend 2 intensely focused weeks at each agency learning from all disciplines”.

Interns:

• Allison McKeever
• Bryan Davidson
• Christene  Vo
• Heather Schwartz
• Kim Karalekas
• Luke Rolka
• Melissa Casillas
• Mary McPherson
• Megan Nuttall
• Whitney Bard

Agencies:

• Ascentium
• eROI
• Anvil Media
• Fish Marketing
• the|new|group
• Grady Britton
• CMD
• Asterix Group
• HMH
• Livengood|Nowack.

Also check out the Team Lattice business card: It grows with their ideas.



Hazelnut Tech Talk is proud to play a part in reporting the COLAB experience, and is dedicated to connecting COLAB members with local networks, people and events that are moving and shaking the design world.

All of the members of COLABORATORY have been blogging about their adventures since their first day. Bram Pitoyo built a way to follow all of the action at once. It also checks the latest Twitter conversation that’s hastagged #COLAB, so you do none of the work and get all the results. Check out Bram Pitoyo’s COLAB Feed Aggregator from Yahoo! Pipes.

A Colaboratory Visit

Today, Bram Pitoyo and I visited CoatesKokes to see what the Portland Colaboratory members were up to. The two Colaboratory teams were hard at work on their final PR and Marketing pitch for Sameunderneath. We watched them interview some CoatesKokes employees about what the Sameunderneath brand stood for. After about an hour of this, James Rice made a visit and let the team in on some strategic presentation advice.

James’ advice came at the right time — both teams have only seven days left before their final presentation to Sameunderneath. With only a week left in the program, he aimed to give them strategic advice on creating engaging and successful Marketing/PR plans.

James Rice is the Digital Brand Strategy Director at Ascentium, an agency specializing in interactive media. He has an intense track record. During his 15 years of agency experience, he’s only lost 5 clients. Compare this to baseball, golf, or the Olympics.

———————————————————–

James Rice Begins

James Rice: One of the things that most people forget, especially at your age, is that the concept of a team is very important. Never lose sight of that.

Collaborate

photo credit: Capra Royale

One thing we pride ourselves on is that everyone feels like they can work together to execute to that client’s expectations.

For instance (he pointed to Colab member Christine Vo, who was sitting to his left) if Christine and I were presenting to a client, a sort of conversation could go on between the two of us. It wouldn’t be like divisional, like assigning one person slides 3 and 5, or dividing up the work.

If you have the appropriate discussions in front of customers, that will speak volumes for people wanting to hire you.

———————————————————–

On the Errors of Big Agencies

There are some errors that most BDA (Big Dumb Agencies) make in presenting to potential clients. One of them is that they are used to pitching the team. CoatesKokes doesn’t do this.

It’s not about the people, or the history of whatever. Introduce your like this: “This is Joe, and he’s the account planner, and Sarah is the copywriter”. That way, the client sees what the agency is going to do, not what its people did in the past.

In case the agencies are listening, the idea of a BDA is not mine. George Parker coined the term on his blog AdScam.
He lived in Boise Idaho, and is a kind of blogger pundit. I highly suggest reading his work, as well as Marktd.com.

That all said — act as a team.

———————————————————–

Clients, Challenging Brands, and Organization

photo credit: gcoldironjr2003

1. Clients want to hire people who are enthusiastic about the business — who have taken the time to learn — who work together to challenge each other. At the same time, never be afraid to challenge the brand’s assumptions.

2. Be very organized in your thoughts — you have to be able to tell the story. Always pretend there’s a director over your shoulder, or that you’re presenting to your own camera.

Those are the two big tenants of presenting well.

———————————————————–

Passion, Slides, and Owning the Room

photo credit: jurvetson
Clients want to see that you’re passionate about the presentation.

But don’t put everything on the slides. If I see slides with more bullets on them, I’ll probably scream.

OWN the room when you step in. What’s on the glass or projected, will fill the gap.

What is most important is that you’re standing there with your team, and you’re passionate about what you say.

———————————————————–

Words Inspire Images

photo credit: Georgieporge

I was in my car the other day, and Posion’s Every Rose has its Thorn came on the radio. I listened for a moment and then switched over to CD. That Niel Young’s Cowgirl on the Sand. That was much better for some reason.

What made it better? It’s the same when it comes to presentations.

What we want to do in presentations is to get someone to think uniquely, or to present something that shows we’re unique. The phrase “Cowgirl on the Sand” shows something to our mind. It really conjures up an image. It is also unique, while the phrase “Every Rose has its Thorn” is overgrown; cliche.

Always try to come up with polarizing and intriguing things, and be very vocal; personable.

(At this point, James Rice began to wave his hands around a bunch).

Also use a bunch of hand motions.

(He pointed to the whiteboard behind him).

———————————————————–

This whiteboard is your best friend.

photo credit: Ben30

Once we went on a pitch and won HP as a client against a big competitor. We presented without laptops and Powerpoints and just brought in a whiteboard. That way, we could actually involve the clients in our presentation. They could watch it develop instead of sit there on the screen — this unmodified, ungrowing series of static images.

That’s one of the things I’d like to see in every presentation room. A whiteboard on which you could project a presentation on the lower part of it.

———————————————————–

Owning the Room During Electronic Malfunction

photo credit: Qfamily

Sometimes you come in, and there’s stuff that sometimes doesn’t work. White boards solve that. When possible, always have a backup. You shouldn’t need a Powerpoint to pitch an idea. It should be there in your head, and the head of your team.

———————————————————–

The COLAB Sameunderneath Presentation

James Rice: Lets talk about the Colaboratory presentation to Sameunderneath. How much time do you have?

Colab Member: 30 minutes for the pitch, and 15 for questions and answers.

Another Colab Member: No, it was just 30 minutes.

At this point, the team realized that there was a discrepancy of time-knowledge amongst them.

James Rice:
This brings up a good point. There should be that one point person who is in change of the entire thing. There always should be a pitch leader who is collecting all of the ideas. Everyone will take care of parts and pieces, but there needs to be part of a collector.

———————————————————–

On the Presentation of Self

photo credit: Steve & Jemma Copley

Never spend time on welcomes. I’m probably the only team that doesn’t do biographies. With Linkedin, Facebook, ect. out there, and there’s a good chance they know it is you.

As soon as you state, “I did this”, your design work becomes about your past.
If I could bestow any philosophy — it’s all about what you did — it’s about what you’re doing.

———————————————————–

On Thanking the Client

photo credit: carakatze

Don’t thank them like, “we’re happy to be here”

I’ve seen it done where people are so soft, like “I really appreciate the time”

Clients want actionable people that are ready to hit the ground, who are ready to kick some ass.

Say: “On the left there’s Chris Stein.

If you introduce her, it begins to be like a team.

———————————————————–

The Whiteboard

photo credit: mlinksva

On the screen, you can’t do the kinds of things you can do on the white board.

(He goes to the board behind him)

I just did this in a pitch the other day. I called it this area on the board, and made it the impact zone.

Instead of having an agenda — there are other certain things you can do, like you can take little sticky things and put down the thoughts on each other, and then start to arrange them into logical clusters.

—-
So then there’s these points of impact, and you can put them on the very first slide. For instance it can say the six things we’re gonig to do for you.
For samenunderneath you’re impact zone is going to be brand, exposure, orginality…ect.

What else do you want to do?

Do you want to create a new customer? Attract a new customer?

———————————————————–

Innovate in the Marketplace

photo credit: Lauras512

If you just put one or two words here and tell a story around them.

If I were pitching for Sameunderneath I’d probably be like “we’re here today because you’ve had a large impact to a very unique set of customers in what you’ve done for the last nine years…” We’ve looked at what kind of impact you’ve had in the marketplace.

If we were look at your brand expansion and how we can bring about greater exposure through your “market expansion plan” (adding sometimes its fun to put in phrases htat sound big)
today we’rll talk about how you can re-imagine your plan.

Lets look at brand experience, social retail. It is these thigns that will increase your exposure in the lines of your market plan.

Sameunderneath will take on this exposure and expand on it.

When I talk about a markting plan I have certain fears.

ROI would be on there.
(But I hate the word ROI — I’d prefer rather to use measurement…or culpability).

I’d have a statement and the impact points of ‘experience, authority, understanding.’

When I talk about experience a story is already starting to unfold.

Powerpoint presentations makes us be explicit.

I try to rip those bullets out and say them, not show them.

A slide can say “new ideas have the power to break boundaries set by others’ assumptions.”

———————————————————–

Branding a Presentation

photo credit: PinkMoose

You can also turn the presentation…not to your brand but to their brand.

Build the presentation like you work for them and put their brand on the bottom of the slides.

We do a lot of quite a few pitches that we do at Ascentium, and the strategy used depends on the type of pitch. If it is a type of social media strategy, then that comes on our deck (our brand and feel).

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Building from Scratch

photo credit: Richard Jones

We put all our presentation material on the network drive and it’s a mess.

Even though the presentation material is there, every time I build it from scratch.

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Finding Inspiration

photo credit: alicepopkorn

I have a delicious tag called inspiration…or “fucking rad”.

They’re where I go when I need inspiration.

Another thing I go to is Flickr.

If I’m stuck while making a presentation, I get what I want to say, and then create those keywords. And I build a slide desk with just thoe images.

And I begin to fill in those gaps “what do I want to say”.

Sometimes I put those ideas on notecards.

Question: What advice would you give to someone not as comfortable with presentng to a group?

James Rice: There are some amazing creatives that don’t want to pitch. They want to contribute to ideas.

I don’t pracice creating or programming anymore.

In the big picture, I’d probably, over time, find out where I’m there on it.
I have to ask the question of whether I want to pitch, or do I want to contribute a lot of really great ideas that are on the pitch?

In the case of Friday…get over it!

You’re gonna have great ideas…

You’re too young to be nervous.

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Images

photo credit: gutter

If your image is about expansion, find images of storefronts on Flickr that exist in other locations. Map the Sameunderneath logo onto them and see what happens. How does Sameunderneath fit in other ecosystems?

How could Sameunderneath fit into other cultures and other audiences.

As we looked at your plan of expansion…then do a map.

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The Awesomeness of Circles

photo credit: kyz

People love circles by the way

And if you draw circles and shit…

(He shows the group a slide filled with various objects).

Then clients will love it. They have the capability to show growth and change.

If you can draw what you’re trying to say people are going to love it. You’ll be so successful.

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Macrovisualizing

photo credit: audreyjm529

(Points to the board — where many ideas are listed).Man…this could be a slide of 26 bullets.

James RiceDon’t increase the number of slides to decrease the nubmer of bullets.

What I’d do is macrovisualize what I’m trying to visualize.

(Points to the jars of M&M’s on the table… (see, M&M’s are not triangular or square. They’re circular).

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A Sample Introduction

photo credit: eyeliam

James Rice began by drawing a vertical line on down the white board. One one side of it, he drew Sameunderneath.

James Rice: Here’s Sameunderneath .. it’s made a great impact on 18-24 year olds.

Then James started circling the logo, adding concentric rings around it that were larger and larger as they progressed. He led them to cross over to the right side of the vertical line.

James Rice: And here’s where we need to take it. This is why circles are powerful — they show the progression of time.

Where we need to take it is the 30-40 year olds…and increase the core audience. Then, as time progresses, the 30-40 year olds need to be come the main audience.

Try to draw you what you’re going to say.

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Learning from Failure

photo credit: zentolos

Instead of saying here’s what succeeded, I’d like to tell you about something that failed.

It’s fun to give you advice based on a thing that didn’t work .. because it is easier to see know what went wrong.

I’ll tell you what went wrong this time.

We hadn’t met the client before, and we were up, literally, for 61 hours.
Thus, we had no context, and with only three days to prepare, it was pretty much impossible.

We should’ve been more prepared for it; I should’ve told them no.

But we all realized we liked the three day thing.
Because when you have three weeks, you smash all of your ideas against the wall. You force yourself over them too much, until they become less of what they were before.

Like my writing professor in college said — write it. And then you’rll rewrite it and rewrite it and rewrite it. But just write it.

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On Taking Breaks

photo credit: dennis and aimee jonez

Don’t stay continuously working on something. You need to give your brain a break.

More importantly, focus it completely for a while, and then step back.

(He examined the presentation on his laptop).

I also used the colors and blue…maybe that was the problem.
I also didn’t use rounded corners — against my best intentions.

I’ll give you a secret — brand voice is what happens when you come in with
Your goal of the presentation is to distill it down into memorabale, topical, organized pitches.

You should have over 15 slides, ideally. And talk to your slides — they’re meant to work for you. They’re also touchpoints.

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On Pitching

photo credit: akeg

“When will you be pitching?” He asked the Colab Members. “Will you be practicing?”

It was stated that team Lattice would be practicing at Studio Bard on Wednesday.

James Rice: Does everyone have soem Sameundernath clothing?

I might do that if I were pichng htem as a client. It’s more gimmicky — but it shows that you’re all invested in the brand.

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Ten Things You Can Really Remember

photo credit: seanmcgrath

Look over your documents and come up with 10 great things that you really remember.

Make sure those ten things are what is remembered when you walk out of that room.

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Create a Visual Analysis

photo credit: playerx

Come up with your own type of visual analysis.

Everything dyou do should be expressed visually.

(James went again to the whiteboard and drew circles).

James Rice: Here’s our biggest MINDSHARE competitor.

Here are some very unique ways for you to expand your customers…and increase their mindshare.

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The Impact Zone

photo credit: Ana Filipa Machado

Identify the expertise in the creative ideas… identify zones within your plan where you now have it down cold.

Know it more than what it takes to get into that plan. Consider:

• Brand
• Exposure
• Originality
• Innovation
• Expansion
• ROI

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Conclusions

It was great to hear what James Rice had to say about the creative industry. As an Anthropologist, it was an interesting injection into a world of competing teams, creative ideas, and intense work methods. I look forward to seeing the future ideas that come out of the mind of James Rice and the Colaboratory members.

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Resources

photo credit: markhillary

Check out the blog of James Rice
And you can follow his Delicious Links.
Or you can follow James Rice on Twitter.

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