a hundred avatars

Smart Hyundai

Speaks for itself. Smart intervention because Hyundai understands the social web and why people might love the brand.

Paula Scher and the Geography of Design

In a few short interviews directed by Nicolas Heller and produced by former colleague Brian Collins for the Art Directors Club, Paula Scher talks about how the energy of the city affects her work. Part two talks about her maps, which are amazing renderings of the layers of perception that maps really represent.

She's doing the signage for our new office, which is really cool.

And part two

Measuring the Universe

I thought this was a really fun way to encourage interaction between museum, artist and viewer. The artist created the concept, initiated the performance and then let it go.

I'm looking forward to seeing it at MoMA. An interesting take on crowdsourcing and perhaps a guide to non-art related entitites interested in opening themselves to others.

I'm on a panel about 'Multicultural Millenials' and...

...and I figured I would try to get your help.

The nice folks at the NY Latino International Film Festival have been kind enough to invite me to speak on a panel next week. The topic is 'Multicultural Millenials' or as they've put it in the description:

Bilingual, digitally fluent, “Multicultural Millennials”, particularly bilingual Latinos, have emerged as the nation’s most powerful population segment, strongly influencing mainstream culture, lifestyle and media consumption. Here we discuss how this population shift has created great opportunity for content producers, distributors and advertisers, and how these groups can effectively dialogue to create and promote compelling programming for the new, multiethnic face of America.

It's at 3 PM on July 30 at HBO (1100 Ave of the Americas b/w 42/43rd Sts – 15th floor) but I'm not writing this post to shamelessly plug.

I'm posting to elicit some ideas.  Sure, I'm going to follow Guy's advice. And yes, I have some opinions on the subject already: the fluidity of identity, multicultural or not; lack of importance of authority; they don't twitter or pay for music; Univision isn't producing content for them, which is why they're going to UGC; blah blah blah...

OK, I have some more homework to do to prepare. But as part of that homework, as the panel is a week away, I thought I would see if anyone else has found resources or info online that are particularly enlightening about these so-called multicultural millenials.

I'm very open to stealing your ideas...I'll give credit, of course...

Twitter is for old people and apparently so is boring research

http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/uk/article6703399.ece

I thought this article was interesting, as much for the (half baked) insights this kid has as for the idea that one kid, texting a bunch of friends can make a piece of research that is more valuable that all the other stuff a huge investment bank is generating.

Kind of makes you wonder if we or our clients are using our intuition to dig for consumer insights or letting 'corporate constipation' stand in the way of digging for good ideas.

Anyway, it was interesting and sparked some very good ideas. (thanks Eliza for sending it to me.)

Lunch with a legend (Pedro Font)

My boss and I had the great pleasure of meeting and having lunch with Pedro Font, a true legend in  (multicultural) marketing and advertising yesterday.

For those of you who don’t know who he is, he’s the man who put the Fo into the FoVa that still appears on my paycheck. (17 years later, WING is technically a dba).

He founded the predecessor to Wing in 1979, 30 years ago this year. Say what you will, he was a major force in making the Hispanic market and multicultural marketing the multi-billion industry that it has become. If you want to read a decent overview of the agency back when Grey acquired it, check out this link.

He, for lack of another word, es un personaje. Since leaving the agency he has run a business responsible for selling Televisa’s content and other companies’ films distribution rights all over the world. In other words, Don Pedro is doing just fine, thanks. For all the stories I’ve heard through the years, and I'm sure the rest of you have too, I found him quite gracious, full of ideas and interested in what we’re up to at the agency.

Put a different way, Don Pedro is on our side.

As a true personaje, Don Pedro was not hesitant to regale us with stories and to give us advice. Some of it should be taken with a grain of salt, some of it is useful. All of it is worth reading.

I took notes, and figured I’d share what I gleaned to be Don Pedro’s rules of the road with you. Some of it he said, some of it was observed....

1. Keep it simple. Not everything needs to be a home run. Simple solutions can go a long way
2. Know your business, know your client and make choices focused on that conocimiento
3. ‘Hay que dar’: always have ideas and always share them. Be helpful. Some will stick. Don Pedro took the time to pitch us several potential business ideas. He certainly doesn’t have to, but he didn’t get where he is by ever stopping pitching. Having ideas and sharing them is a habit to be cultivated.
4. There’s an opportunity in the market for the perfect combination of media, creative and promotion. Why is it all separated? We should create whole experiences.
5. Pitch to the top. Font & Vaamonde was successful because Don Pedro pitched AG Lafley, John Pepper and the big dogs with ideas. When they didn’t listen, he literally banged his shoe on the table until they did. Banged. His. Shoe. On. The. Table.
6. ‘Hay que pensar como consumidores piensan. No, no. Hay que pensar como consumidores consumen!”
7. Don’t be afraid to teach people how to do something. 
   
8. “Hay que hacer algo diferente, no solo porque es diferente pero porque esta basado en tu conocimiento del consumidor”
9. Do your homework. Don Pedro had a little file on the us and the agency and where the Hispanic Market is today. Most people don't take the time to plan ahead.
   
10. Don’t be afraid of regionality or getting your hands dirty. FoVa was successful because they regionalized ads in local offices (TX different than CA different from NYC, etc) and did local local promotions to move product. I know in this day the tendency is to go national or network, but we can learn a lot by being on the street.
11. Get out of NY. Hispanic market or not, the consumers we talk to in our careers aren’t eating at La Esquina or BondST or even in Queens. Get out, drink some beers with real people, be in the real world.
12. “yo soy de la vieja escuela. Ustedes son de la nueva.” acknowledge differences between the new and old and learn from both.
13. There’s always money out there. If you have a good idea, just go and prove it once and then go try to get the money. Make results happen
14. You only need one client to say yes for a good idea to become a reality.

Oh, and if you can, get your own table at 21.

The Power of the Human Interface

Hi from Multitouch Barcelona on Vimeo.

that was sweet. via ivette

America's Most Wanted

Nada, nothing new, but I really enjoyed this bit with the guys from Nortec Collective during this episode of Kurt Anderson's Studio 360. 

Never ceases to amaze what openness happens when people ignore borders and follow hearts and instincts.

There's also a great interview with Toumani Diabate, who is the 73rd generation of his family in Mali to play the kora. 

In this case following the borders follows the heart. It would be cool if Nortec started to work with him, since both interviews mention Bjork. But the Nortec guys didn't work with her, they just had a taco together.

New really means new. Different really means different.

I was fortunate to be invited to participate in the Horowitz “New Generation: Everyone, Everywhere, All the Time” conference.  At the conference Adriana Waterston presented some of their findings.  Afterwards a group of us were asked to respond to the implication of these changes on how people and brands behave. 

Some thoughts:

(Caveat: I don’t have the presentation yet so although directionally the data is right, I may be a little off in my numbers. Deal, ok?)

The behavior of the non-White members of the New Generation (18-35) across multiple screens is shockingly distinct from that of White non Hispanics. Although black, Latino and Asians do all the same things (user generated content, mobile video, etc etc etc) we’ve heard “the kids today” do,  Horowitz found is that they do it all a lot more. A lot.  

For example, about half of  non Latino whites 18-34 make content vs. about 70% of Latinos the same age. Blacks and Asians fall into the middle. Blogs and social networks also vastly overindex. Huge implications for brands and others who want to connect with these groups, right?

Broadband penetration does lag amongst Hispanics. A bit more than I thought. But when you control for age, it’s pretty much a commodity amongst younger Latinos. So what content are you giving them to fill the fat pipes going into their homes? And once we all have 4G speed on our laptops and cell phones?

Another point:  The question isn’t which latinos under 35 have smart phones that can deal with social networks and mobile video. The question is which Latinos under 35 don’t  have them.

The future? Already here.  Multicultural youth aren’t lagging what used to be called the general market in adopting and adapting new technologies. This intense use of multiple screens tells me that however much non Hispanic whites who have grown up digital feel underserved and underwhelmed by most of the content they have, Hispanics in particular are fleeing options in both English and Spanish in droves.

Yes they still watch TV. In both languages. But the dissatisfaction they have with existing options is driving them increasingly to create the content themselves.  If I were in the content business (wait, I am in the content business, aren’t I?) I would push to find more ways to shape that across mobile and broadband and engage them in the creation and selection of content that feels right for them.

Brands who believe in the market have a responsibility to make this stuff come into existence.  This isn’t just about doing the right thing, it’s about doing something that makes money and creates a new and better reality for everyone. 

This may be a bit cliche, but I read a quote today from someone’s profile on Facebook (wish I could remember whose) from Antoine de St Exupery that sums it up:

If you want to build a ship
don't herd people together to collect wood
and don't assign them tasks and work,
but rather teach them to long for the 
endless immensity of the sea.

Our people are already heading for the beach. Let's make the experience as grand as we can...

Passport, please

Renny Gleeson mentioned to me today that he was very excited about the first inter-world transport of an avatar from one world to the other. From SecondLife to IBM's Open SIM, as it were. As he puts it, as we make it harder for people to go from country to country it gets easier to go from metaverse to metaverse.

He has a great perspective on what, on the face of it, is not an immediately relevant event for those of us living primarily in this universe, not various metaverses.

I'm particularly intrigued by the idea of setting up multi-metaverse way stations, like a Coke shop that connects World of Warcraft to SecondLife and what the implications for data transfer and visualization could be.

Check out the post here.