Convergence

(Credit: Somebody Else's Phone)

If you found somebody else's phone, would you look through it? That's a rhetorical question. Of course! Your phone is your life, at least if you're under 25, and there's nothing more interesting than the "lives of others."

The advertising firm Wieden + Kennedy London translated the idea of "cellular oversharing" into a much gushed-about ad campaign for Nokia. "Somebody Else's Phone" depicts the lives of three twentysomethings through their text messages, multimedia messaging service, and pictures, and it essentially creates a new story format: … Read more

I was interviewed by BrandWeek the other day for a story on the recent hype around “Design Thinking” in marketing. They were looking for a skeptic and found me. First of all, it is worth noting that the term “design thinking” is of course a clever marketing buzzword. It’s ironic that marketers themselves embrace it as the next big thing as it doesn’t create a new marketing paradigm so much as it proves that marketers are prone to being persuaded by their very own tricks. “Design Thinking” has become a brand, and brands are all the more powerful … Read more

In the past two weeks, there’s been at least a dozen stories in the mainstream and not-so-mainstream media about the importance of innovation in a recession. For businesses, refocusing on R&D and innovation really is a good strategy in down times. There’s plenty of historic evidence to back the claim up (the invention of farming technologies and civil engineering breakthroughs in the Great Depression, alternative energy investments in the early 1970s, and a sharpening of Internet business models after the dot com bust in the late 90s). What’s also true is that writing about innovating … Read more

On the occasion of Barack Obama’s nationwide TV prime time infomercials last night, Fast Company’s Ellen McGirt reviewed the campaign’s media strategy and in particular its innovative use of amateur (or “professional” amateur a.k.a. "promateur") video. While the Obama camp has heaped millions of dollars on traditional TV broadcasters, setting a new record for ad spending ($250 million), McGirt believes that the true winners in this campaign are amateurs and democracy

To get an insider’s perspective, McGirt interviewed Obama’s director of field video, Arun Chaudhary, at an event in July in New York. … Read more

(Credit: Plan Spark)

Now that the exhaustively inspirational Pop!Tech 2008  is over, it’s worthwhile taking a look at what’s next, in other words, at the conference's theme for 2009. The organizers’ choice is pretty telling and may be indicative of a larger shift among not only the elite thinkers gathering at Pop!Tech, but also broader public opinion. Succeeding this year’s theme “Scarcity and Abundance” will be “America Reimagined,” a “top-to-bottom look at America’s opportunities, its challenges, and its future” that promises to explore what it means to be a “superpower in the … Read more