The Jimmy V Classic was on earlier tonight. Between the games, they played Coach Valvano's speech at the 1993 ESPYs. It's a touching talk full of good advice...
Every day try to laugh, think, and feel joy or sadness to the point of tears.
When you think, think about where you started, think about where you are and think about where you're going to be.
To get from where you are to where you want to be you have to have enthusiasm for life, you have to have a goal/a dream, and you have to be willing to work for it.
Enjoy every moment of your life with everything you have.
Apple wasn't the only one making a big announcement last week about one of their devices. They just got a lot more coverage. In case you missed it, here's what Xbox Live + Kinect have in store for watching TV:
As I have shared many times in the past, I believe that there is much that marketing communications people can learn from the world of design. One of the greats to learn from is Dieter Rams. His 10 Principles of Good Design are timeless and true to the very core.
The quote above on design is equally true to creating advertising, web sites, mobile apps or any other type of "brand" experience for people. Indifference for the people we create things for and the reality of their daily lives is not just foolish, it's wrong.
Back in early June, I received my Nice Ride key (pictured above). I had decided in late May to take advantage of the discounted price for an annual subscription, knowing that there would be days where a ride from work to home or vice versa would be more enjoyable than my typical walk. What I didn't expect was to enjoy riding a bike again so much.
Somewhere around my second or third ride, I decided that it would be fun to document some of the places I rode the Nice Ride bikes over the summer on Instagr.am, using the hashtag #summerofnicerides. It was inspired by some of the women in the Twin Cities who started using #summerofdresses last year and are doing it again this summer.
Not long after a few shots were posted, Arik emailed me to ask if I would be open to others joining in to share their adventures using the hashtag as well. I of course agreed and thanks to Arik and the good people at Bike Walk Twin Cities and Nice Ride, it has now found a home on the web for others to share stories and pictures of their bikes, favorite rides and adventures.
You can read more about it on the BikeWalk blog, including how to participate. Or, just go to the "Submit" section on the Summer of Nice Rides blog. It would be great to get more people to take part, so consider this me asking you to join in if you ride a bike. You don't have to use the Nice Ride system and it's really pretty simple to upload a picture, so I hope you do.
Thaz shared a "quote" from a post by Maria that came from this TED Talk by Maajid Nawaz. The quote, wasn't actually a quote, but appears to be Maria's summarization of the first part of Maajid's talk. The statement was as follows:
Regardless of it being a quote or a note, and my liking a lot of what Mr. Nawaz had to say, I don't agree with this notion of identity definition or the term for our current era as "the age of behavior."
Ideas and narratives have always been a part of our identity construction and communication, and our behaviors have always reflected our beliefs about ourselves and the world. What's true throughout time is that our beliefs about these things shape our identities. The change lies in how much information is available to us for our identity constructions today vs. the past and how the exposure to that information has changed our belief structures over time.
In the past (when religion and ethnicity more easily defined our identities), our exposure to new information was tightly controlled and the experiences that shaped us were limited to the geography we lived in and could relatively easily travel around in. At this time, there were fewer expressions of the main religions of the world and people's ethnic make-up was far less diverse. Because of these factors, it was easy to quickly understand someone's identity based on these simple factors.
With the advent of the printing press and new forms of transportation, those boundaries expanded and have continued to expand at a faster and faster rate ever since. As new forms of information distribution and transportation have come to be, our exposure to new and diverse beliefs, values, ideals, etc, have expanded and we have adopted things we liked from other cultures, religions, and the like.
Because of this, the number of expressions of the major religions of the world is far greater today than in the past, as is the ethnic make-up of the world's population. This has made it nearly impossible to define identity by religion and ethnicity alone. Because of how diverse the world's population has become, now we have to rely on people's actions (behaviors) to be the primary communicator of their identity more so than we did in the past.
So, let's not call this the "age of behavior" as behavior has always been a key form of communication, including expressing one's identity; and let's not say that it's a new thing to have identity defined by ideas and narratives.
We're living in the Information Age, which is to say that we are living in an era where we are instantly, continuously and globally connected to different ideas and narratives. Through this, our beliefs can evolve at a far more rapid pace than ever before. This also means that our identities can evolve faster—if we're open to it. But that's another subject all together.
all views expressed on this blog are those of the author alone and do not necessarily represent the
views of his company, clients, co-workers, friends, nor family.
