The Web: The Great Aggregator / Stating the Obvious

Part of shutting out the broadcast signal, or rather the cable blur, from my life was an attempt to push boundaries of experience and redefine media/information consumption. It's been over a year now and just a few months since I've started this blog. And I wanted to reflect a brief moment.

It wasn't until I truly started to dig into assets like Twitter and the Blogosphere that I realized the impact and possibility of what we are creating. We have condensed the world. It's cliche to say that the world is getting smaller, I know. But I don't mean "condensed" in the sense of homogeneity and singularity, but literally condensed. The web is a living journal, anthropology in motion. It is (and this has become one of my favorite phrases) "the great aggregator." It has brought all our interests into a central location, enabled communities to develop where there were none.

Another, disconnected point: is that very few of us use the web for purely web based things. We use it as a tool to share, to research, to learn, to connect, but most of the pay off happens in the corporeal world. I expect that to change in the future, we've already seen it start with ebooks and movies.

What I appreciate about the web is its depth. After skimming through the endless sheen of superficial information, users have access to the brightest, most innovative minds in their respected fields, or the best gossip, or most entertaining videos...it's endless. And with that comes connection. In addition to aggregation, the web has become an open forum that has redefined "popularity" and reconstructed "elite."

The bottom line is that this truly is anthropology in motion. And the web exists because of the connections we make through it. And without those connections there wouldn't be much of a web at all, just flailing sinews.

Preposterous Propositions II: Real-time Vehicle Monitoring for All?

This is a short edition of Preposterous Propositions, with a simple question - why don't we mandate black boxes in cars, or at the least public transportation/vehicles...or maybe we do and I'm not aware? I'm a little in love with the possibilities (and security) that come with OnStar. In-vehicle monitoring should not be limited to a paid service.

I don't know if I am ready to support real-time monitoring of all vehicles on the road; but I wholly support monitoring of public vehicles and a some sort of accident reporting/recording system for all vehicles. Lives and money would be saved.

With the above comes the inevitable question of privacy, a subject too big to tackle here. Suffice to say, in my opinion the definition of privacy is constantly evolving and, what are rigid boundaries now, will soon turn porous against the wave of digital and social advancement.

The Advertising Challenge & Johnny Cash's One Piece at a Time

I'm rereading Jon Steel's Truth, Lies & Advertising. In the opening chapter he addresses the ever-persistent rift between effectiveness and efficiency. Efficiency, Steel explains is "doing something the right way" and effectiveness is "doing the right thing." A narrow minded, intense focus on "the right way" leads to the wrong results. In other words, if we're too focused on checking the boxes, we're likely to miss the intangible that make things work beautifully.

It's a forest through the trees thing and his point reminds me of the challenges agencies and brands are facing today. Looking down briefs, processes and project requirements, too often we're hitting check boxes blindly in an effort to meet productivity goals and get a project out the door. The effect, as Steel writes, is a tightly manicured, but misguided product

In my own view, the advertising industry too often preaches effectiveness while actually pursuing efficiency, transforming...a real world of difficult decisions and uncertain evidence into a comfortingly simplified one where indicies of performance are hard facts...

A friend sent me this video this morning, and I couldn't help but draw the parallel. And as I wrote this...Johnny Cash came to mind. In both cases all the pieces are there, the boxes are checked...so we've got efficiency covered...how about effectiveness?

Harvard Tea: Brand Micro-culture...or Synchronisity?

I made a mistake today when I was on Harvard's campus. While at the university's bookstore, I saw a POS display promoting "Well Red" tea from Republic of Tea. Guessing the tea company was nodding to the Harvard Crimson, I thought "shit, that's smart...make a tea blend specifically for a stressed-out audience and tap into their demonstrated enthusiasm. Way to integrate yourselves and way to think of a small audience with potential huge payoff..." But I was wrong...the "red" in "Well Red" is a line of tea using the red tea roobios as its main ingredient.

Despite the mistake, the idea is born from brand association/sponsorship that has been around for ages from toys in Happy Meals to product placement (Audi anyone?)...brands have always been looking for the right opportunity to integrate themselves into their audiences' lives.

It's almost cliche to say it, but with the increased clutter/competition brands face in the market and an audience that is ever distracted, integration is more important than ever. However, in my truly humble "bloggy" quick opinion, I'd argue there's potential for brands to do a better job with their partnerships.

What struck me about my make believe Republic of Tea/Harvard partnership was that a) tea is a perfect product for stressed out college students b) it was an inventive use of red tea and c) it was an example of brand micro-culture, which, in essence is why we love the web. It was the long tail theory in practice in the corporeal world - as if someone was saying "you like tea, you like Harvard, there's a product for you." It's that type of intimate, close to personalized connection, that once made relationships between brands and consumers so great (way back before mass production) and the web has made so great again. Just sayin'....

Have an example? Share it.

What Am I To Do With This CD?

I loaded a real live CD into my computer today for the first time in months. It had music on it. And I wanted to listen to that music. So I took said CD, inserted it into the drive in my computer, after a few moments my computer registered said CD and my experience began. I was bored. Yes I had the music (which was great) but I wanted more. I took out the booklet that accompanied said CD, read it. It was full of insightful, curious, mind bending information, like where the CD was made, who the sound techs were, and most importantly...the lyrics. The lyrics to the songs that I was listening to. It was a multi-dimensional experience. And I was blown away...the only thing missing were my 3D glasses.

The fact is, downloading music from a CD is ridiculous. I don't see any merit in it...the sound quality between a CD and music from the interweb is the same when I am listening on my computer and the difference is negligible from downloaded song to stereo vs. CD to stereo (whereas vinyl is a totally different experience).

The process made me realize how much I a) appreciate blogs and music websites and those folks who pour their hearts out to make listening to music a broad experience...an act of discovery and b) the innate social value that music has and c) the compact disk's coldness and uselessness.

Prince, I love you but the web is not dead...and it's poetic that you released your CD with a medium that may truly be dying...newsprint.

Now I have coasters.

Preposterous Propositions I: Tubular Transport

Public transportation is underutilized, underdeveloped and a poor example of our fine nation's innovation and social achievements. It's equally obvious that our cities' streets are cluttered with inefficient delivery vehicles often idling and exhaling their carcinogens to an already troubled atmosphere.

Today's Preposterous Proposition is a birds and stones solution (you know...two for one): Dedicate a number of subway cars for freight, build an infrastructure to support quick offloading and transfer deliveries to electric/clean energy light vehicles that will complete short delivery to destinations in a select radius around each stop. In peak hours delivery trucks would be banned from city limits, except for special exceptions and a toll would be charged for delivery trucks that need to come into city limits. POW.

Designer Philip Hermes presented a similar concept titled Urban Mole for the 2009 VisionWorks Awards. The system used pneumatic tubes to deliver smaller goods.


http://www.visionworksaward.com/05-winner/second.html

Welcome to Preposterous Propositions

Truth Be Own gets a new section today. A home to random ideas. They are poorly researched, vague and whimsical; in short, everything a blog should be. It's an idea bin full of bad, good, absurd and genius... guaranteed it will not be well thought out. It's the digitization of my notebooks and will be added to revised, reformed and remade. Get ready.

col*LAB*orate IV: Canned Beauty

Via unconventional art watch, Wooster Collective, comes news of a new installation of ProjectorRoom from Agents of Change. In ProjectorRoom, three members of Agents of Change work from the same canvas building off, and deconstructing each other's work in an organic collaboration. It's an unplanned unified vision driven by movement.

Dig.