robin tooms

Either you know someone like this, are you are like this yourself. Either way, a fun commentary on our “twobsession” with twitter.

This week, I heard a news report about “textual harassment” – where someone gets harassed through text messages. Now first, you may not feel this is as invasive as harassing phone calls, but when you think about it, some people have to actually PAY for these text messages, depending on their cell phone plan.

Thank goodness this site http://www.thatsnotcool.com has tried to find a way to help you resolve issues like these before it moves into stalker status and you have to get the “law” involved.

You can pick from any number of issues you see in online social spaces or for mobile devices. In addition to textual harassment there’s something for that frequent IM-er, or when you need to dispel an online rumor or even when you’re confronted with a profile photos that’s just a little too revealing.

I promise this will make you day. Hope you never need to use them, but you likely will!

I have to thank a coworker for pointing me to this site, Obamicon.me. I’d seen these “Obama-ized” icons on people’s profile pics, but couldn’t figure out where they had been coming from. Actually, they probably should be called “Fairey-ed” icons after the poster designer, Shepard Fairey.

I had first heard of Fairey years ago when the sub-culture “OBEY” stickers were popular. I’m guilty of sticking a few of them myself. It’s funny to think about how his artwork has become ubiquitous – it’s truly taken on a life of it’s own. Much like I remember Fairey’s stickers of the past being subverted. There were so many parodies of “xxx has a posse” stickers.

The Obama poster had a different purpose, but the desire of the public to manipulate art for their own purposes remains the same. It’s “frogress” I suppose.

I’m always in the middle of reading multiple books at any given time (probably a bad habit). At the moment, two of those books are by Malcolm Gladwell – Blink and Outliers.

I was happy to see this video posted of a presentation Gladwell made at the October 2008 AIGA GAIN conference for design and business. In it, Gladwell discusses some interesting insights into the creative process, and how we, as humans, innovate.

In this are a couple of lessons:
1) The “magic” behind creativity and innovation is largely driven by devotion to practice and mastery of your skills
2) Experimentation is an evolutionary process. Most of us are “experimental innovators” who through a series of trial-and-error create something great (vs. having an effortless flash of innovation – the “conceptual innovator” as Gladwell describes).

Any of you who make your living off of your “ideas” knows how difficult it is to come up with something truly great. Gladwell’s presentation underscores the need for all of us to be constantly looking and applying what we learn in our everyday practice. Always be a student. Don’t be afraid to try (or fail).

http://www.aiga.org/content.cfm/video-gain-2008-gladwell

Just finished watching “To Kill a Mockingbird,” which I hadn’t seen in quite some time. I’ve always appreciated this movie not only for the look inside human nature, but also for the subtle artistry in the storytelling. This is especially evident in the title sequence – a work of art in itself that really can’t be fully understood until after you’ve seen the movie. I love how at a quick glance it seems innocent, but actually represents complex themes disguised in those symbols and drawings.

Watch the full title sequence.

This story about an Ohio bakery was getting heavy rotation on CNN this week (CNN, I’ve discovered, is an odd, but new, guilty pleasure for me.)

At a time when we seem to be reading more stories about the unemployment line, or faceless corporations slashing huge numbers (see the tech layoffs list or just do a search on google), it was actually a pleasant surprise to see this story of Lance Inc. doing the right thing for it’s workers – which is probably why it was receiving so much attention in the midst of all that bad news.

I doubt any of those Ohio workers felt they were entitled to a gift from the new company, nor was Lance required to be so generous to them. Sometimes the right thing for employees is that unexpected gesture that reminds them that the company is not faceless – it’s run by people too.

After reading about all of the comments on twitter about the Motrin® commercial, I decided yesterday that I finally had to view it myself (search for #motrinmoms to see the conversations). The ad design itself is funny and interesting – also a bit clever, which is what probably got Motrin in trouble.

I can almost image the agency that created this trying to brainstorm all the activities in a mom’s hectic day to see what the real “pain points” are. Whether it’s lugging groceries from the car or bending over your umpteenth load of laundry, there’s plenty of back-busting activities abound. They chose the babysling though, probably because this gives the ad a specific focus and targets a certain demographic for Motrin (hey, there’s lots of infant and children Motrin these moms might need too).

At the risk of getting hatemail, I have to say that I like the concept of this ad. It breaks out of the typical clichéd ad format and attempts to talk to the consumers in the way that two best friends (or in this case moms) might exchange war stories together. The verbiage and voiceover style in the ad is tongue-in-cheek, and statements were exaggerated to be witty and memorable.

Moms remembered the ad all right, but for all the wrong reasons. From what I read, it seems that the references about how babyslings are all the rage (a lot of moms wear these) and how these make you feel like an “official mom” (as if you were doing this for the wrong reason) were the points most of the comments reference as offensive. It appears that these attempts at humor just pushed it a little too far for this particular target audience. In this way, the ad itself failed because it did not resonate with a large amount of their viewers.

Because of the uproar, J&J (who makes Motrin) has since pulled the ad and made a public apology to moms for missing the mark. The bigger question is that now Motrin know about twitter are they going to do things differently next time? Will they mobilize this very audience in a positive way next time (ie: focus groups)? Will they now setup a presence on twitter (they’d had to get their name back first – someone else has it) or their own blog or facebook group? Now that they’ve seen firsthand how swiftly social media conversations can impact their brand, I imagine that they will.

Want to see the ad for your yourself? Here it is.

I have to post this because it’s just a brilliant piece of work. I really applaud this effort. I can only imagine how much work it took to go through all the debates and find these phrases, then montage them into this video.

For me, it really reinforces how much these messages HAVE been repeating (yes, these are their talking points!) I suppose on one side that’s a good thing – most Americans must know by now what each candidate stands for. But on the other hand, have we really learned anything new in the past couple of weeks?

In addition to checking the usual news sites and the latest fact checker obsession sites after the debates, I’ve also found myself heading over to wordle. It’s just really satisfying to see these common words arranged so well, and with so much meaning (intended or not!).

In this one, I find myself drawn to the little “oil” inside the “C” of “McCain”

title="Wordle: Barack Obama at Third Presidential Debate"> style="padding:4px;border:1px solid #ddd"/>

And there are tons more on flickr.

You know you’re in trouble when you can vividly imagine your roof coming off, or all your windows blowing in – that’s what was keeping me awake at 3am this morning. So as I retreated to a closet, I was hoping for the best as Hurricane Ike did its worst. Somehow my husband telling me later that the garage would probably go before the house did not necessarily comfort me. I began to wonder how well paid the construction workers were that built our house…

So there I was, with my two cats, in the closet. One was totally freaked out all night (even before the closet she was constantly pacing in circles), and the other was like “meh, I’m sleeping”. It was one sleepless night for me though.

All things considered, I got off very lucky. Just a few casualties in the yard, and a gate that’s now stuck open in the wrong direction are the only real problems. I’ve spoken to some friends and family, and the story seems the same so far – it could have been much worse. As I write this, I’m still not able to watch TV to see the full effects of the storm. The radio describes more adverse effects in Galveston, Kemah and Clear Lake, but until you get to see it, it’s not the same. Probably for the best as I’d be glued to the TV right now, which isn’t healthy.