"J" Joe Jeans and his Jellybeans

Watched a Sesame Street alphabet video with my 4 year old this weekend. I haven't stopped singing this little ditty since.

I have long been obsessed with the genius of Jim Henson. On college entrance essays he was consistently included within my responses to: "who you'd invite to dinner/who would you like to meet living, dead, or fictional"? As I watch this video now, the power of it hits me on a handful of levels.

Level One: nostalgia. I'll tell you there's just something about the quality of those voices. It's like coming home. Voices that change only very slightly regardless of the muppet they're representing. Those are the voices of my childhood. It doesn't take much to put me back in front of the television as a 6 year old in our old house on Sycamore Terrace.

Level Two: staying power. This video is from 1971. My daughter is watching it for the first time and loves it. The song literally transcends time. Like much of Henson's work, although appearing (and musically being rooted) within its distinct decade, the heart, the lesson, the crux of what's on display is absolutely timeless.

Level Three: talk to kids/talk to adults. Long before the Simpsons and Family Guy laid claim to the notion of appealing to kids through the medium (cartoons or puppets) while appealing to adults through the subtlety of the writing, Sesame Street and the Muppet Show were all over this. I laugh at an aside Grover throws away in one sketch and the kids laugh because the bald blue dude with the mustache can't get the "numero dos" without it spilling on the floor of the restaurant during the musical number "Granada".

Level Four: education. I am most inspired by the fact that this creativity was all developed in the name of education. As my daughter logically guesses that some words start with "G" rather than "J" (which both have the same phonetic root), I take comfort in "J-Jane jumping down the lane" singing a song about "J".

I guess what it boils down to is my admiration for the ability to use artistry for a greater purpose than selling something. Be it education, green technology, cultural innovation, or social connectivity. Every once in a while something comes along to remind you that once upon a time, someone just got it right.

Offsetting Innovation

An AdAge video promotes the partnership between Brooklyn Brothers and the Versus TV cable network as being "pioneers" for developing a software program that allows them to track how much tonage of carbon emissions they use on a commercial shoot. The tonage is then offset with a purchase of (I'm guessing here) RECs (or, renewable energy credits).

This is a tricky subject. On the one hand, I applaud the idea of offsets. I am thankful that the desire here with Brooklyn Brothers, Versus TV, and ERM (the London-based enviro-engineering company that helped develop the software) is to take ownership and responsibility of their impact on the environment and, ostensibly, to do something about it.

However, carbon offsets are slowly becoming the e-z pass to corporate guiltlessness. It's like deciding the leaking roof is fixed by putting a bucket underneath the spill rather than fixing the roof.

True innovation would have been to partner not with a software company, but with a hardware company. Instead of figuring out how they could "neutralize" their carbon impact, why not work with someone to develop a camera, an editing suite, heck, how about a food services refrigerator, all that run off of an easily renewable energy source? NOW you've got me standing up and applauding and saying "pioneer".

Again, I preface this by saying that I think the idea of purchasing various offsets is at least a step in the right direction. I think it enables a person to make a gesture of taking responsibility for their (generally unwanted but necessary) eco-unfriendly actions (taking a plane, running exorbitant amounts of energy, etc.). But, I think with the amount of money, power, and leading-edge thinking out there, I think companies should be looking to do more than be able to lay their guilt aside at night. I think it's all too easy for major corporations with large factories or other significant emissions-producing workshops to buy their way to surface-level ecofriendliness.

Where are the leaders? Where are the risk-takers? Where are the dreamers? Build us a better filter, a better smokestack, a better generator, a water-based engine. Partner with those doing this work. Yes, yes, plant trees. Of course. Support solar and wind energies. Do the things that offset the world's emissions. But start making tangible, physical changes in your own backyards. THAT's the kind of pioneering I'm looking for. That would be noteworthy, new, daring, exciting, and dare I say, creative.

Deconstructing Katrina

I read about The Green Project in GOOD magazine. Definitely worth checking out. Here's the basics:



As New Orleans continues to figure out how to deal with the rubble and destruction brought about by Katrina, The Green Project is a nonprofit organization that offers a solution more sustainable, more valuable than a demolition team coming in and laying waste to the ruins. Instead, they carefully salvage and comb through damaged or collapsed buildings and gather materials (everything from doors, windows, light fixtures, pots, pans, etc.) and resells them in their warehouse store at a low cost to the community. This practice keeps excessive waste out of landfills as well as creating a local economy as well as preserving the flavor of architecture and style from Old New Orleans as the city rebuilds. Brilliant.

The other nonprofit organization I'd like to mention here is The Idea Village. They're an entrepreneurial collective based in New Orleans who work off of the mantra "Trust Your Crazy Ideas". More specifically, they are an economic development consultancy that have basically taken on the role of revitalizing the growth of New Orleans on business, cultural, and social platforms.

I learned about The Idea Village through a facebook group called "Planning for Good" - a collection of strategic planners (and their friends) using their brains to help solve problems for causes and non-profits. The first project listed was a brief asking for ideas on how to promote The Idea Village. Planners worked collaboratively and competitively to send in a strategic vision for how to help The Idea Village from a communications standpoint. I missed the deadline, but it's something I'll keep tabs on and open up to the agency when the next assignment comes out. Or, if you're feeling particularly saucy, give me a ring and I'll make sure you get tapped directly.

the power of the innocuous moment

Life can really be divided into two categories: the monumental and the innocuous.

Let me explain:

The moments of our lives are either ones that we will stamp as worth remembering, stories we'll share with other people, or times that will be photographed and put on our mantelpieces. They may range from your first kiss to a job promotion to the birth of your children. They are the glorious events that will forever go down in history as having a certain depth of value and meaning.

The other parts of our lives can be categorized as innocuous moments. That is, the insignificant, everyday points of time that make up the majority of our lives, but which, in hindsight, are utterly forgettable. I put a band-aid on a paper cut. I picked a pen from my desk drawer. I shaved.

Here's the interesting part. Despite the fact that we would all love to experience the thrills (or even intense lows) of the monumental moments of life, it is the innocuous moments of life that truly unite us. Who hasn't almost slipped on a patch of ice, (or on a slippery floor, or inside the shower) but caught themselves and then looked around to see if anyone was watching? Those "innocuous" moments connect us on a deeper level than the major life events.

For example, many people have had a wedding. If you tell someone you got married, they are excited for you. Perhaps it brings back memories of their own wedding. But it is the fact that you stood in the mirror retying your bow-tie over and over again that connects the two of you because that's human. It's the moment of fallibility. The moment of imperfection that creates the shared experience, not the event itself.

I was thinking about this idea with regards to advertising. I think advertising has an inverse relationship with life's "memorable vs. innocuous" moments. Simply put, the more "monumental" life's actual moments are represented/recreated through advertising, the less memorable it is in the consumers' eye. AND, the more "innocuous" the life moment, the greater the memorability when put into advertising.

I will offer these two car commercials. In the one, the landscape is sweeping, the road dramatically winding, the footage downright breathtaking. The boredom overwhelming. In the other, VW has literally filmed a series of life's forgettable moments and created an impactful, memorable advertisement.

Daewoo


VW


The idea is that we are, as a society, joined by these small moments of truth. Moments we don't think about at the time, but carry such emotional importance when we see them or hear them replayed by somebody else. It is the notion that we are not alone, that we all have to go through waiting for a bus, slipping through a closing door at the last second by "making ourselves super thin", or getting back the wrong change. It is by sharing the innocuous moments that we develop a sense of truth, compassion, and unity. Know what I mean?

got ubiquity?....still?

Came across this T-shirt on a coffee-walk with the gents. Hilarity ensued. Alright, it wasn't exactly this T-shirt, it was black with white font, but the phrase was the same. And it got me thinking...

Haven't we moved beyond the "got milk?" campaign for our clever pop-cultural references at this point? It was a monumental campaign. Truly. It has forever left its mark on our culture and will be inducted in the advertising hall of fame in its first year of eligibility. But surely there must be a handful of newer references to be made, no? Certainly we can do better than slapping one half of a tagline onto a T-shirt and filling in the blank with "x" product, can't we? Maybe we can't.

The main problem with the neverending love affair with Goodby's contriubtion to the California Milk Processor Board is that it's just not:

a) old enough - it's in that middle phase where it was actually done over a decade ago, but isn't quite aged to the point where it's clever. Partly because of...

b) it has never gone away. - Since it's inception the "got milk?" campaign has had many admirers and appropriators. For a while, the mockery was somewhat clever, pointed to a phenomenon and made sense. But at this point, the use of "got ___?" puts an image in my mind of a group of dental secretaries gathered around the lunch table in Des Moines (no slight on the city, that's just where this imagination takes place) laughing over getting some T-shirts made up for the Christmas party which read "got plaque?" or "got brush?" or "got floss?"

I only ask that we harness our collective creative juices and agree to stop the derivative, redundant, old-news punnery.

Talkin' 'Bout Me Generation

Read a book a while back called “Generation Me”. It’s written by Jean Twenge (PhD) and deals with the differences between Baby Boomers and the generation after that.

Interestingly, Baby Boomers are referred to as the “Me Generation” in part because they were the first generation to attempt to find the journey to the self (somewhere Dr. Phil and Wayne Dyer are smiling and nodding). Not just as a drug-enduced search, but on a deeper level, the Baby Boom generation left societal norms behind and attempted to discover what was “true for themselves” – what they were passionate about, what was more than a “job”, but a “calling”. In their current, version 2.Oprah, Baby Boomers are on the verge of empty-nesterhood retirement and are reclaiming and rediscovering themselves and the interests that they gave up earlier in life or put on hold because of the families they raised. Now, time and money are enabling hobbies, passions, and edutainment excursions.

However, Dr. Twenge points out, despite the search for the self, the Baby Boom generation has always done everything in groups. Sit-ins and protests, consciousness raising, support groups, discos, even current “self-seeking” is based around joining classes, going out with girlfriends, joining a league, etc. As much as they can be, they are the “Cooperative Me Generation”.

Earlier I didn’t say “Gen X” or “Millennials” (nor Echo Boomers, Gen Y, or iGen). The author insists that Gen X is lumped in with our younger counterparts (which irks any Gen Xer – just ask us) and that Gen X, as a very label, is a misnomer because the same slacker mentality that got us the coolest of the generation names is not applicable to todays execs, entrepreneurs, and Internet millionaires who fall within that age range.

And so, the post-Baby Boomer generations (basically from 1967-1990) are all lumped together in Dr. Twenge’s definition and form “Generation Me” (or “GenMe” for short, buzzworthiness) - the flip version of the “Me Generation”.

Here’s where it gets interesting. The book points out that we are the true owners of this self-focused name because we have all grown up with the idea of “self-importance”. We were sent to school and sat through “self-esteem” curriculums. We have been reared on the notions that we can “do, be, and achieve anything we want in the world, as long as it makes us happy”. We take for granted that there could ever exist a time when our personal needs weren’t already met, or expected to be met. We don’t have to search for the self, the way our parents did. We live in the world of “self” because it is our birthright. Isn’t it? Twenge writes: “Today’s youth are experiencing that society right now, and they speak the language of the self as their native tongue. The individual has always come first, and feeling good about yourself has always been a primary virtue.”

The good doctor/author provides decades worth of comparative data of high school and college students between the 1950’s through the 1990’s showing the increase in such measures as “extrovertedness”, “desire to be famous”, “belief that my opinion matters”, “self-satisfaction”, “independence” and “self-promotion” among others. There is a clear rise in narcissistic behaviors and attitudes. We are more likely to argue that if we “do our best” that’s good enough. That (for example) a paper we wrote in college couldn’t possibly be challenged because what really matters is that we believe in its validity, not its execution or implicative merit. In plain English, GenMe is being labeled as the most self-serving of all time, and that we have no comprehension of reality. That despite our desire to be whatever we want because we believe we can, as Roper Youth Report states, “the gap between what they have and what they want has never been greater.” There are simple realities and truths we choose to ignore under the shingle of “positive self-esteem”: fat girls aren’t ballerinas and short kids aren’t in the NBA.

In fact, the very digital technologies that are so native to us (blogs, LiveJournals, etc.) play into this generation’s need to be recognized. Why have a MySpace page or a blog other than to collect “friends” or to have your opinion commented on. Rather than take the time to become an expert on a subject, we live in a YouTube-instant-authority world which enables anyone with a keyboard and a video, pardon me, digital camera to voice an opinion, and, if they’re lucky, become a celebrity du jour and experience the “Lonely Girl 15 Minutes of Fame” to which this generation is so latently entitled.

It’s a fascinating read so far. It has both had me baffled in indefensible agreement as well as had me turn to a stranger on the bus to let them know “that’s not true, she’s generalizing” or “why won’t she talk about the inherent positives of that kind of technology?”

What do you think? Are we self-centered or independently-minded? Entitled or optimistic? Young leaders or Narcissists?

Bjork, Sadie, and living big juicy life

I caught Bjork on Saturday Night Live. Apparently it originally aired in April, but that's irrelevant. I have no words for what ensued. The band was intensely focused on the bizarre rhythms and experimental sounds coming from their drums and synthesizer. In the background were, (what?), a dozen women with various brass instruments in their hands and microphone stands in front of them. Eventually they played the instruments, but for the most part, they were there to join in the spoken-word chorus, chanting along with Bjork: "we are the earth intruders..." (shown here not on SNL, but an approximation of the performance)

And that brings us to the center of it all. Bjork. The rhythm literally was coming out of her. Her barefeet skipped and danced of their own accord, her hands kept time and shook and moved as well, she didn't look out at the audience, but was clearly connected to them just the same. What I saw was a woman so completely living out loud and plugged into her world that, despte the fact that I found the song itself at best a future punchline, I was transfixed, unable to turn away, and unable to deny the powerful joy I was witnessing that can only come from doing what you truly love.

Fast forward to my daughter, Sadie, this weekend (or any weekend really). I love my kid. She's four years old and lives her life in that same way. The picture here is her in just her underwear with her hair styled in upturned braided pigtails to look like the swirly curls of her idol, Uniqua. In the picture, Sadie is at University Village, dancing and enjoying herself while onlookers smile and turn to each other and say, "omigod, she's so cute". More than cute, which she clearly is, I pray that my daughter always retains that sense of freedom and joy and truthfulness about who she is, so that life's passion can move through her like it does Bjork, Jim Henson, Sark, Bruce Mau, or any other person who is clearly living their right livelihood. Do you know folks like that? I encourage you to start a list below.