tiny gigantic

You can make equal cases for optimism or pessimism. Because, mostly, it comes down to your temperament and whether you’re more disposed to hope or fear. And then you make a semi- conscious decision to live a life under the belief that everything will turn out okay or not. Here’s what Dr. Larry Brilliant, from Google.org, has to say about it:

Lucy and Bart like to get conceptual about body stuff. Their work gives me feelings of vague uneasiness. Check this link if you want to feel uneasy too.

So my father has been working on a project called Seeing Peace: Artists Collaborate with the United Nations. The premise is this: if we cannot first envision what peace actually looks like, we will never make it so. So he’s asked artists from United Nations member nations to make art works that show what peace might actually look like, from their unique cultural perspective. Think about that for a second and ask yourself: what would peace actually look like? It’s easy to visualize war. But peace, it surprisingly tough.

A small part of the project, Peace Billboards, will be running in San Francisco from May 26th to June 22nd. 10 artists from 10 countries will be displaying their visions of peace on 10 billboards all over town. So we made a website to help spread the word. Monster thanks to the vega project for the killer flash design!

Go check it out and spread the word.

On the very very slight chance you don’t already know about the torture—I mean, “interrogation”—technique called waterboarding. Launched by Amnesty International. Created by a firm called Drugstore. Wow.

So Al Gore commissioned a new logo for his non-profit advocacy group, the Alliance for Climate Protection. You have to applaud the fact that he donated his Nobel prize money and then some to the cause. But mostly, I’m inclined to believe that it’s really fucking hard for a simple logo to spur people to action, without a ton of context (I can’t think of any other than the recycling icon and the peace symbol.)

Still, I’ll reserve judgment for now because I’d like to know what you think about this. So, whaddaya think?

I gotta give a lot of respect to any company that has the balls and vision to build a brand around the eff-word (in case you’ve never heard the phrase: FUBAR stands for Fucked Up Beyond All Recognition), and in the case of Stanley’s new demolition tool, it’s not just ballsy and visionary but also super fucking fun and tasteful and clever and inspiring. I’m not going to need a sledgehammer until next burningman, but I might just go ahead and buy myself a fubar this weekend and find a use for it. Also: check the site to witness the destruction full-screen.

Our brilliant homeboy Shawn Feeney is launching an experiment in gift economy called BFF. You should participate.

Here’s how it works:

Send me a photo of you and a photo of one of your close friends. I will draw a composite of your two faces. You’ll be best friends forever.

I’ll draw 64 facial images of composite friends. Then I’ll draw a series of composites from the composites; 32 drawings combining four faces each, 16 drawings combining eight faces each, and so on until finally there is one drawing derived from all 128 faces (see diagram below)

Seriously.

Cuz she makes all kinds of pieces that call into question our relationship with our own bodies, and the things we use to support them. Yow!

Jonathan Bloom from Wasted Food has come up with an idea to make Replating more feasible: the Replate Top Unit. Awesome!

So we’re looking for an intern. Someone who knows how to find cool stuff and how to make cool stuff and how have a damn good time doing it. Specifically, we’ve got two big things we’ll need your help with. The first will be to help us keep this here inspiration feed super dope on a daily basis. The other big thing is our graffiti book. We need all kinds of help with it, so we’ll talk about how to start when you get here. One other thing: it’ll be part of your job to have your own kick-ass ideas for new projects. Because if they’re good, we’ll make sure they get done.

Don’t send us your resumé. Send us a conversation starter: conversation at languageincommon dot com.

You are beautiful is a project I wish I’d thought of first, but mostly I’m just psyched it exists—and apparently it’s thriving.

Right now I’m reading R.D.Laing’s The Politics of Experience, which is really fucking fascinating and rather challenging too. I just started it, and I’m still not quite sure what it’s about, but it’s got my attention, and I have a feeling it’s gonna fuck me up in a good way pretty soon.

Quick background context: Dr. Laing = a well regarded maverick psychiatrist who was doing his work in the 1960s and 70s [wiki]. What makes him so interesting to me is that he held the (unorthodox) view that craziness is connected to the structures, limits, and restrictions of communication.

Now, don’t get the idea that I know anything about psychology. I don’t. I found this guy through his poetry, specifically a collection of poems called Knots, which does an AMAZING job of showing how craziness comes from communication:

One is inside
then outside what one has been inside
One feels empty
because there is nothing inside oneself
One tries to get inside oneself
that inside of the outside
that one was once inside
once one tries to get oneself inside what
one is outside:
to eat and to be eaten
to have the outside inside and to be
inside the outside

But this is not enough. One is trying to get
the inside of what one is outside inside, and to
get inside the outside. But one does not get
inside the outside by getting the outside inside
for;
although one is full inside of the inside of the outside
one is on the outside of one’s own inside
and by getting inside the outside
one remains empty because
while one is on the inside
even the inside of the outside is outside
and inside oneself there is still nothing
There has never been anything else
and there never will be

Wow! That is some fearsomely glitchy shit. Have you ever read anything like that?

In 1975, two artists—Brian Eno and Peter Schmidt—collaborated to create a deck of cards designed to help break creative deadblocks. Here’s what Brian Eno has to say about them:

“These cards evolved from our separate observations of the principles underlying what we are doing. Sometimes they were recognized in retrospect (intellect catching up with intuition), sometimes they were identified as they were happening, sometimes they were formulated. They can be used as a pack (a set of posibilities being continuously reviewed in the mind) or by drawing a single card from a shuffled pack when a dilemma occurs in a working situation. In this case the card is trusted even if it appropriateness is quite unclear. They are not final, as new ideas will present themselves, and others will become self-evident.”

There are now 5 editions, and they are filled with super interesting, super cryptic advice that feels (to me at least) very powerful for provoking a new way of thinking when you’re stuck.

Want to draw a card from the deck? Do it online here or here or here.

Wikipedia for Brian Eno here, Peter Schmidt here, and Oblique Strategies here.

Image credit Peter Schmidt.

Brian Eno previously in Tiny Gigantic here.

Oh man, this bit of activism is brilliant, but I sure wish it weren’t needed. Apparently, Ethos Water is pretending to care about thirsty kids, and making a huge profit on customers’ desire to help. Yikes.

For more details, do a web search for Ethos Water Scam.

We’ve talked here before about the importance of letting creativity live. In fact, growing creativity is what we stand for.
But this talk by Sir Ken Robinson at last year’s TED conference says it better than we ever have. Watch the video. I mean it. It is essential for your growth as a creative person. Do it now.

Yes, those are Red Bull cans. The energy drink maverick has come up with another smart tactic to use generosity to build community around the their brand. The Art of the Can is a nationwide “hunt for creativity” that asks participants to create any kind of art using red bull cans. The site is surprisingly pretty and I think Red Bull succeeds in making creativity the hero, rather than themselves. Nicely done. Oh, and some of the artworks are fucking awesome.

Someone once said that “personal branding is the new holy grail of marketing.”

From wikipedia:

Creating a personal branding statement starts by first identifying your target market and then pinpointing the most important benefit they want from a person in your position. Then you must create reasons why people should believe you will deliver on your benefit promise.

And if possible, you should create a unique difference between you and your competition. Creating a personal brand identity helps you become known as the one to call in your industry.

My target market? My unique difference? My ass. Personal branding misses the point: people are not brands and they’re not companies. They are, uh, people. And there’s all this gooey, messy, intuitive, emotional, vibe-type stuff that humans innately get. Sure, we want to be perceived a certain way by other people, but that perception is allowed to change. In fact, it’s supposed to change.

We are unpredictable, and inconsistent—even to our closest friends—and we like that, because we see ourselves in each other. We learn how to be better people (yes, that includes career stuff) by allowing ourselves to change as we wish, by watching our fellow humans fall down and get up, and by admantly refusing to define ourselves in 15 words or less.

From Fast Company:

To start thinking like your own favorite brand manager, ask yourself the same question the brand managers at Nike, Coke, Pepsi, or the Body Shop ask themselves: What is it that my product or service does that makes it different? Give yourself the traditional 15-words-or-less contest challenge. Take the time to write down your answer. And then take the time to read it. Several times.

If your answer wouldn’t light up the eyes of a prospective client or command a vote of confidence from a satisfied past client, or — worst of all — if it doesn’t grab you, then you’ve got a big problem. It’s time to give some serious thought and even more serious effort to imagining and developing yourself as a brand.

Please. Does anyone out there actually have a “favorite brand manager”? Would you admit it if you did? Personal branding reduces humans to a sales pitch. It diminishes all the unexpected delight that comes from not worrying about your place in the world, but instead simply occupying it to see how it will change you, and the community around you.

Humans thrive in communities (um, duh). But creating a perception of yourself as a human in competition with other humans does the opposite of creating community. It creates animosity. If you’re really worried about getting people to like you and remember you and want to talk to you, all you’ve got to do is be nice and be thoughtful about how you’re being nice. Seriously, that’s it. You don’t have to brand yourself as a corporation might, you simply have to be human.

Media Guerilla’s got an interesting post about the perceived/real value of conversation marketing.

The challenge many marketers struggle with today…is how best to filter, weigh and prioritize conversations. To the extent that it maximizes your efforts and returns. Put another way:

How do you separate the purposeless conversation from the purposeful one?

I think there’s a tendency among some marketers right now to consider all conversations, particularly online ones, as inherently good and valuable, and such, a justified use of time and resources. It’s just not true and it’s certainly not practical. Listening is important, no doubt, but when it comes to response and engagement, you really need to pick and choose which conversation will have the best returns and outcomes

Well said. When we started our company, we were focused on creating useful conversations above all else. And while I still think that’s right, we didn’t think much about what qualified as useful for the people were creating conversations with. We mostly just thought about how to do provocative stuff that got people talking. But that talk (think empty buzz on Word of Mouth Marketing) isn’t an ongoing conversation that elevates the understandings of all participants. It’s gossip. And it works for a moment, but it’s not sustainable. To really create good, sustainable conversation you have to ask: how does this help the people I’m talking with?

And you have to keep asking it at every turn in the conversation. That’s what keeps conversations going. And, as cheesy as it sounds, giving people help also gives them hope. So if you can build a reputation as someone who gives help and hope (and inspiration, as such) people will keep coming back to talk with you.

So we were eating our pancakes and sausage this morning, and when the coffee kicked in, we kinda got on a talking jag. We were talking about whether BurningMan is a business or what? Because if you’ve been there you know that the whole thing is a huge work of art, and also that that it makes tons of revenue. This is really fucking cool. Because it shows that life’s rewards don’t only go to the mercenaries, and that it’s possible to become extremely prosperous by focusing on creativity and generosity—two things that usually don’t play a huge role in a business plan.

Previously, you’d never hear a businessperson described as an artist, and vice-versa. But now, the idea of business seems to fit more comfortably with the idea of art. We think it’s got something to do with a change in businesses and the people who start them. More and more, we see companies adopting multiple bottom lines that factor culture, community, and wellbeing (which are traditional domains of art) into their accounting, right alongside money. Entrepreneurs are now looking to build companies that don’t just make money, but actually create a positive change in the world. They want their work to mean something, and that’s pretty well aligned with the spirit of art.

Here’s a bunch of encouraging evidence:

Richard Florida’s The Rise of the Creative Class & his blog
Dan Pink
Good Magazine
Cambrian House
Your Name on Toast
Pixelotto
False Profit

Anyone wanna add to this list?

This viral art campaign invites you to download templates for printing your own cold sores. What an awesome idea.

Via Wooster Collective