New Home
I'm still tinkering with her - but Pixel x Pixel is moving to Word Press!
http://pixelxpixel.wordpress.com/
Come for a visit!
20 August 2008
16 August 2008
Jaynie - in all her Jayners glory - has provided us with an excellent blog post about the Olympics and its effects on new technology. Check it out here: The Web Outside.
15 August 2008
14 August 2008
Today's Thermostat
While I was visiting with Marcia in Kansas City, she admitted to her lack of technical knowledge. This as I went into my "digital" job description. What she compared it to was awesome.I paraphrase here:
"It's like when my Grandmother was afraid to use the thermostat because she thought she would break it." Amazing to think that a thermostat was once considered high-tech. I wonder what it's going to be for us thirty-somethings.
To Marcia: You will not break the Internet. Only Abby has that power.
29 July 2008
As I finish AdAge's article on Twitter and its problems with down time, I go to tweet about it to my Tweeteroos...Twitter is down.
Ha.
28 July 2008
How Bladerunner
Marketing Vox is reporting that Esquire magazine's October issue will have a digital cover - scrolling and movement oh my! I am suspect...yet entirely excited to see this in action. Ford has bought the inside cover - no word yet on what they will be doing with it...but wow, will there be a time when flash ads are featured in magazines? When ads actually have the ability to exist in the physical world, but allow for interaction?
Marketing Vox is reporting that Esquire magazine's October issue will have a digital cover - scrolling and movement oh my! I am suspect...yet entirely excited to see this in action. Ford has bought the inside cover - no word yet on what they will be doing with it...but wow, will there be a time when flash ads are featured in magazines? When ads actually have the ability to exist in the physical world, but allow for interaction?
24 July 2008
All the buzz around AMC's Mad Men is becoming palpable. Are we far from returning to the days of smoking and drinking in the office? (I do have a bottles of champagne and wine at my desk...hmmm) - Should we be scared?
Agency Red Tettemer is so excited about the upcoming season 2 - and delighfully glowing in the back of publicity the show is receiving (giddy up PR bandwagon!) - that they have redesigned their website to reflect the TV show.
That's dedication.
Bhars - I vote we host a happy hour Friday in honor of the show.
Pushing MobileThese push pins, encouraging walkersby to text to learn more about the particular area (this one is the Children's Musuem), are pushing up all over Boston. Love that the city is embracing mobile technology...too bad it couldn't get out of its way to provide free Wifi thoughout the city.
09 July 2008
Seth Godin writes: "If you are willing to satisfy people with good enough, you can make just about everybody happy. If you delight people and create change that lasts, you're going to offend those that hate change in all its forms. Your choice." Classic client conundrum.
read more | digg story
read more | digg story
07 July 2008
The High-Five
Today is my father’s birthday. Or I guess I should say, it would have been.
I’ve been spending a lot of my time at a leading, private financial institution (my client) interviewing and coaxing smiles out of a dozen employees. While really tiring it’s been an incredibly fun, learning experience. These are a diverse group of people – who would have thought that the hot-shot, kid trader spent two-and-a-half years in the Peace Corps? Or that a managing director majored in Religion?
It’s been a fantastic thing to bridge the financial v. creative (read: us v. them). I have come to realize and appreciate that I am just as competitive as any financial analyst; have a great love for the “win” and thrive on the energy of fast-thinking. Really, I’ve come to understand that the “Heck yea!” of trusting your instinct and picking the right stock – is the same “Heck yea!” of knowing you nailed a big idea.
I bring this up to share the following learned fact: following talking sports, asking someone about their kids will always get them to smile. I watched a couple of Dads this week talk about their kids and well, today was a bit of a challenge to make it through with a smile.
So it was with a great amount of irony that I found myself unexpectedly running into one of my interviewees on the street this evening. He greeted me with a huge smile and words of appreciation for what it is I do. To understand this tremendous occurrence, understand this: the man is responsible for millions of dollars…the man moves the Market – the man is THE man…I’m a dork who occasionally has some ideas. But he was impressed; he was a little bit in awe. He high-fived ME.
As I crossed the bridge heading home, pondering “Really, that just happened?” I started to smile and think, “That was an out-of-the-blue courtesy of my Dad."
Thanks Dad.
Today is my father’s birthday. Or I guess I should say, it would have been.
I’ve been spending a lot of my time at a leading, private financial institution (my client) interviewing and coaxing smiles out of a dozen employees. While really tiring it’s been an incredibly fun, learning experience. These are a diverse group of people – who would have thought that the hot-shot, kid trader spent two-and-a-half years in the Peace Corps? Or that a managing director majored in Religion?
It’s been a fantastic thing to bridge the financial v. creative (read: us v. them). I have come to realize and appreciate that I am just as competitive as any financial analyst; have a great love for the “win” and thrive on the energy of fast-thinking. Really, I’ve come to understand that the “Heck yea!” of trusting your instinct and picking the right stock – is the same “Heck yea!” of knowing you nailed a big idea.
I bring this up to share the following learned fact: following talking sports, asking someone about their kids will always get them to smile. I watched a couple of Dads this week talk about their kids and well, today was a bit of a challenge to make it through with a smile.
So it was with a great amount of irony that I found myself unexpectedly running into one of my interviewees on the street this evening. He greeted me with a huge smile and words of appreciation for what it is I do. To understand this tremendous occurrence, understand this: the man is responsible for millions of dollars…the man moves the Market – the man is THE man…I’m a dork who occasionally has some ideas. But he was impressed; he was a little bit in awe. He high-fived ME.
As I crossed the bridge heading home, pondering “Really, that just happened?” I started to smile and think, “That was an out-of-the-blue courtesy of my Dad."
Thanks Dad.
02 July 2008
LocaModa launches a digital slot machine...in Times Square. Really? Really?? How cool is that! Read more about it at Jayne's blog.
24 June 2008
Word-Scramble on Steriods
Mobile technology is certainly changing the way we communicate. It is also changing the way we socialize and entertain ourselves. When my friends at LocaModa invited me out to see their new Wiffiti/BarCast screen in action, I looked forward to a few drinks and geeky conversation about technology. Instead I found myself in a heated word-scramble game.
Mobile technology is certainly changing the way we communicate. It is also changing the way we socialize and entertain ourselves. When my friends at LocaModa invited me out to see their new Wiffiti/BarCast screen in action, I looked forward to a few drinks and geeky conversation about technology. Instead I found myself in a heated word-scramble game.
Welcome to Jumbli, a multi-player boggle on steroids. The object of the game is to find words within the letters scrambled on the screen before time runs out. Once you find a word, you put it into a text message and send to a specified number. Highest scoring word wins.
I’m a fairly competitive person –well fairly may be an understatement - in any case, the scene became a shouting, texting, laughing experience. So you can imagine my excitement when I learned that this was only a mini-Jumbli.
Jumbli! actually lives in Times Square on a giant HD screen (corner of W 47th and Broadway). When a round starts you are playing against people in NYC. If a round isn’t live, you’re playing against others on the web.
We’re going to see more and more of these type of public multi-player experiences, especially as our mobile devices improve. My advice, start practicing.17 June 2008
The new, hot tactic seems to be pick you're own ending story-telling (who didn't love the Choose your Own Adventure books from the 80s).
For active users - check out 1 million monkees.com which allows writers (monkeys) to contribute different tangents/chapters to stories.
For those with more passivity in mind, check out Get the Girl by Twix, which allows users to choose how the protagonist behaves.
For active users - check out 1 million monkees.com which allows writers (monkeys) to contribute different tangents/chapters to stories.
For those with more passivity in mind, check out Get the Girl by Twix, which allows users to choose how the protagonist behaves.
12 June 2008
I just received this from Filmmaker Magazine - the Editor's Note to this week's email is so fantastic that I'm pasting here.
"I want to talk about Hans Haacke and Trent Reznor, but give me a moment to get from the first to the second.
Haacke is a German-born artist whose conceptual work often interrogates the political and cultural associations produced by the sponsorship of art by corporations and large-scale funders. Rather than celebrate the purity of art and the artist, Haacke sees the contemporary artist exhibiting his or her work at a museum in a show sponsored by, say Exxon or Philip Morris, as being part of the "consciousness industry." For Haacke, when framed in such a way, the art itself becomes complicit in the messaging of the corporation. And, furthermore, when faced with a system in which the only way for a museum to support the arts is to actively seek such corporate sponsorship, it is only natural, Haacke believes, that the artist, consciously or not, start shaping his or work to the ideological preferences of the funder. In this way, art itself changes. In an essay entitled "Museums: Managers of Consciousness," he wrote:
"Those engaged in collaboration with the public relations officers of companies rarely see themselves as promoters of acquiescence. On the contrary, they are usually convinced that their activities are in the best interests of art. Such a well-intentioned delusion can survive only as long as art is perceived as a mythical entity above mundane interests and ideological conflict. And it is, of course, this misunderstanding of the role that products of the consciousness industry play which constitutes the indispensable base for all corporate strategies of persuasion.
It was never easy for museums to preserve or regain a degree of maneuverability and intellectual integrity. It takes stealth, intelligence, determination -- and some luck. But a democratic society demands nothing less than that."
Okay, this analogy is way imperfect, but I thought about the honest, ascetic rigor of Haacke's arguments and the controversies they've created in the art world this week after reading the article by Jon Pareles in The New York Sunday Times entitled "Trent Reznor's Frustration and Fury: Take It. It's Free." In it, Reznor reacts against the supposition being promoted by Chris Anderson and others that intellectual property is all destined to become "free" by himself beating everyone else in the race to the bottom and giving away his last two albums on the internet.
From the piece:
"Mr. Reznor has no global solution for how to sustain a long-term career as a recording musician, much less start one, when listeners take free digital music for granted. "It's all out there," he added. "I don't agree that it should be free, but it is free, and you can either accept it or you can put your head in the sand.""
I thought about Haacke, though, when Reznor talked about the one road he doesn't want to take in the new free economy. He knows what he doesn't want to do: make his music a marketing accessory. "Now just making good music, or great music, isn't enough," Mr. Reznor said. "Now I have to sell T-shirts, or I have to choose which whorish association is the least stinky. I don't really want to be on the side of a bus or in a BlackBerry ad hawking some product that sucks just so I can get my record out. I want to maintain some dignity and self-respect in the process, if that's possible these days."
Thank you. I'm glad somebody has come out and said that the technological innovation of the internet, with all its price-decimating properties, shouldn't obligate us all to become the filler in between banner ads just in order to be seen. But that's just what a lot of people are saying artists of all kinds must become in order to get their work seen these days.
As Haacke would ask, what ideologies does such acquiescence require us to endorse? Going further, what does that do for our work? Do our movies mean the same if they are sliced and diced and released like time-release drugs over social networks? Or if animated bugs hawk products and shows by pirouetting in their lower thirds? Or if their narrative structures are reshaped to accommodate the expectations of those who'd rather play them as games?
Yeah, I know, all of this is just another form of advertising, and advertising has been around forever. But there's something pernicious about the assumption that history is leading the filmmaker to the place where such behavior is unquestioned in the name of independence.
Okay, that's enough of a rant for this week. Go out and see some movies. On the big screen. While you still can.
Best,
Scott Macaulay
Editor"
"I want to talk about Hans Haacke and Trent Reznor, but give me a moment to get from the first to the second.
Haacke is a German-born artist whose conceptual work often interrogates the political and cultural associations produced by the sponsorship of art by corporations and large-scale funders. Rather than celebrate the purity of art and the artist, Haacke sees the contemporary artist exhibiting his or her work at a museum in a show sponsored by, say Exxon or Philip Morris, as being part of the "consciousness industry." For Haacke, when framed in such a way, the art itself becomes complicit in the messaging of the corporation. And, furthermore, when faced with a system in which the only way for a museum to support the arts is to actively seek such corporate sponsorship, it is only natural, Haacke believes, that the artist, consciously or not, start shaping his or work to the ideological preferences of the funder. In this way, art itself changes. In an essay entitled "Museums: Managers of Consciousness," he wrote:
"Those engaged in collaboration with the public relations officers of companies rarely see themselves as promoters of acquiescence. On the contrary, they are usually convinced that their activities are in the best interests of art. Such a well-intentioned delusion can survive only as long as art is perceived as a mythical entity above mundane interests and ideological conflict. And it is, of course, this misunderstanding of the role that products of the consciousness industry play which constitutes the indispensable base for all corporate strategies of persuasion.
It was never easy for museums to preserve or regain a degree of maneuverability and intellectual integrity. It takes stealth, intelligence, determination -- and some luck. But a democratic society demands nothing less than that."
Okay, this analogy is way imperfect, but I thought about the honest, ascetic rigor of Haacke's arguments and the controversies they've created in the art world this week after reading the article by Jon Pareles in The New York Sunday Times entitled "Trent Reznor's Frustration and Fury: Take It. It's Free." In it, Reznor reacts against the supposition being promoted by Chris Anderson and others that intellectual property is all destined to become "free" by himself beating everyone else in the race to the bottom and giving away his last two albums on the internet.
From the piece:
"Mr. Reznor has no global solution for how to sustain a long-term career as a recording musician, much less start one, when listeners take free digital music for granted. "It's all out there," he added. "I don't agree that it should be free, but it is free, and you can either accept it or you can put your head in the sand.""
I thought about Haacke, though, when Reznor talked about the one road he doesn't want to take in the new free economy. He knows what he doesn't want to do: make his music a marketing accessory. "Now just making good music, or great music, isn't enough," Mr. Reznor said. "Now I have to sell T-shirts, or I have to choose which whorish association is the least stinky. I don't really want to be on the side of a bus or in a BlackBerry ad hawking some product that sucks just so I can get my record out. I want to maintain some dignity and self-respect in the process, if that's possible these days."
Thank you. I'm glad somebody has come out and said that the technological innovation of the internet, with all its price-decimating properties, shouldn't obligate us all to become the filler in between banner ads just in order to be seen. But that's just what a lot of people are saying artists of all kinds must become in order to get their work seen these days.
As Haacke would ask, what ideologies does such acquiescence require us to endorse? Going further, what does that do for our work? Do our movies mean the same if they are sliced and diced and released like time-release drugs over social networks? Or if animated bugs hawk products and shows by pirouetting in their lower thirds? Or if their narrative structures are reshaped to accommodate the expectations of those who'd rather play them as games?
Yeah, I know, all of this is just another form of advertising, and advertising has been around forever. But there's something pernicious about the assumption that history is leading the filmmaker to the place where such behavior is unquestioned in the name of independence.
Okay, that's enough of a rant for this week. Go out and see some movies. On the big screen. While you still can.
Best,
Scott Macaulay
Editor"
30 April 2008
WeFeelFine based on Twitter....Twitter keeps coming up as the hot hot hot tool...like the scrolling aspect...there's something twitty about it.29 April 2008
GTA 4
With the gamers buzzing about the office (one even taking the day off to play), the release of Grand Theft Auto IV which now allows multi-person play, deserves a quick mention.
One thing that strikes me, or scares me - not sure which, doesn't this basically train would-be bad guys in murder and mayhem??
Someday, someone is going to hack into one of these programs with a real-life scenario for practice.
10 April 2008
This is a great example of using You Tube in an engaging episodic way. As they explain:
"We're Dan and Adam, everyday guys, who like to find everyday people, like you, demonstrating crazy sports skills on the web."
I love that they've figured out how to exploit user-generated content with their own user-generated content. And it's engaging - primarily because Dan & Adam are likable.
I really hope that Champion (their sponsor) didn't approach them, rather the other way around. That would just bum me out.
http://www.youtube.com/homestylesports
26 March 2008
I have a confession to make: I am a digital geek who did not get hooked by the social networking craze in the last two years.
It is official: I am now hooked, lined and sinkered by Facebook.
Not only is it organizing my contacts, it tells me when my favorite band is in town, who has new photos posted, what books are on my to-read shelf, and what my friends have been doing to procrastinate.
With new apps being added all the time—from fun to functional—Facebook is also a creative marketer’s dream. One of the newest trends is the viral charitable app: “Send to 15 friends, save a family/tree/dog.” With a quick click, the user has done a good deed, and an initiative has gotten some face time.
REM even launched their new album this week via the I Like app on Facebook – one week before it hits stores. Complete with a video introduction by Michael Stipe, the launch gives more credence (and speed) to the evolving music business model which cuts out the middle man.
Time will tell what makes an app truly successful – Facebook, as with any pop culture phenom, runs the risk of becoming too cluttered with them (it already suffers from usability issues). However, there’s no question that these little apps have some serious marketing punch. Seeing which messages rise to the top and have sticking power will soon inform a whole new genre of creative marketing development.
20 March 2008
21 February 2008
07 February 2008
This is just awesome - a Mullen copywriter tells it like it is...straight from the hood of bad account managers, ridiculous clients and the vanity-laden world of advertising (love So Viral).http://www.straightouttawinston.com/
Times like these I question my creative survival of the fittest odds.
31 January 2008
23 January 2008
17 January 2008
According to USA Today: "The FBI is retooling its Top 10 Most Wanted list into an increasingly multimedia, international appeal for help as it tries to keep its signature program relevant in a crowded media landscape....In the billboard deal with Clear Channel Outdoor Holdings Inc., which is donating the space, the FBI will get access to about 150 electronic billboards."I am becoming more and more interested in digital signage...have you seen WGBH's integration of signage and its building?
Fantastic, engaging, unobtrusive....09 January 2008
The latest viral messaging - wildmessages.com - not nearly as good as Snakes on a Plane or the Dexter promotion...still I was compelled to send messages to Abby and Ben.
04 January 2008
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