[ paul isakson ]

Book Cover Designs Wanted

Can you design a better book jacket/cover than this?

If so, Tara Hunt would love your help.

There really are no rules. Just take the words that are there and make the thing look better.

Post a link to your design in her Flickr comments for this image and she'll check them out.

If you don't have a blog, web site, Flickr account, etc. to post your design to, just create a drop for it and put that URL in the comments section.

Also, please spread the word to others if you can.

I didn't get a deadline from her, but I'm sure it's something that's needed sooner than later.

Any help you can give her is greatly appreciated.

Listening to the Obvious

Jonathan Harris and Sep Kamvar have collaborated on a new project - I Want You To Want Me - which is now on display at MoMA as part of their Design and the Elastic Mind exhibit.

The details on what it is and how it works are on Jonathan's site, as well as within the IWYTWM site. Also interesting to view is the process of how the project came together.

Now, this is certainly a very interesting endeavor, as is much of the work from these two gentlemen, but that's not why I wanted to discuss it here. (But please do go read about it and if you can, go see it.)

As the volume on the "brands should be doing things, not saying things" song gets turned up louder and louder, we need to start moving from talking about doing, to actually doing, doing.

People are sharing more and more information publicly about who they are, who they want to be, how they want to be seen, how they want to be communicated with (not to), what they want, who they want to be with, etc., etc.

Whenever I look at some of the past work Jonathan has done, or see something new that does something similar - taking bits and bytes of shared information and making them more useful or interesting - I am reminded of this.

Opportunity is all around us to start helping our clients do things that are more useful to the people who use their products and services. People are sending out public signals every single day about their lives and giving us insight into how we could help them. Are you listening? Because they're telling us what they want. Sometimes yelling. Sometimes whispering. But always telling.

The brands that capitalize on this and are first to meet the evolving needs of people in ways that are relevant to their products and services are going to rise to the top. Brands that continue to think they know what people want and operate in isolated secrecy, well, their ivory towers are going to begin to lose a bit of their shine rather quickly.

In other words, tomorrow belongs to the brands that help people become the heroes of their own stories by listening to what people want and then giving them the things they need to accomplish their goals.

It's time to listen and do more than think and talk. Well, still think, but applied to listening and doing. Not talking. Which I'll stop doing now. Thanks for listening.

--

Related note (2/26): NY Times review of the Design and the Elastic Mind exhibit here.

Grand Central Freezes

This has come up a bit in meetings lately as well as being passed around via email, so I'm sure you've seen it, but if not, here you go. Another great execution by Improve Everywhere. Some personal past favorites of theirs include Slo-Mo Home Depot and Best Gig Ever.

Tele2 Beat Barxing Bassett Hound

Unfortunately, I'm not fluent in my grandfather's native Swedish, so I can't tell you what this is promoting. But thankfully, you don't have to be to have fun with this beatboxing Bassett Hound mixer from Tele2. Customize your beat, record it, and send it to a friend. Or just play around. Either way, it's a good bit of fun.

Sagmeister Poster for Denver Talk

FRONT SIDE

BACK SIDE

The talk is sold out, but you can get a poster by joining AIGA Colorado. Here's the story:

Limited edition Stefan Sagmeister poster for his talk in Denver Mar. 7, 2008:

This poster will be mailed to members of AIGA Colorado. To receive the poster, join AIGA Colorado. If you're already a member update your address. It's all got to be done by noon on Thu, Feb 21.

The poster will be very large (25 x 30") and printed on 100% recycled paper.

The poster is only available by mail to current members. If you're not a member at that time no amount of begging, whining or e-mails with naughty banana references will get you a poster.

Poster photographer: Henry Leutwyler

crgslst

Celeste pointed out this one a while back. crgslst is a new development from Ian Coyle.

I was aware that Ian had started a new company but didn't know he had anything out there yet. I'm excited to see this type of thinking going on from his new venture. And from the superhero.es site, it appears he's up to more interesting things.

If Ian's name sounds familiar, it's probably because you are familiar with some of his previous work.
 

The New Pornographers - Myriad Harbour

Love the illustration and animation in this one from The New Pornographers most recent album, Challengers.

Just Showin' A Little Love...

Watch it here. Create your own here.

Happy V-Day.

Full disclosure notice: We made this last year for DQ and brought it back with a couple updates for them this year.

While You're Waiting for Smell-O-Vision...

Why not lick a print ad?

Read the article here. Or  download the PDF here.

My favorite quote?

"A lot of people won't lick a magazine no matter how good it tastes," says Chris Heye, Welch's marketing chief.

Forrester to Agencies: You're Doing It Wrong

[image via ginthefer]

A new report from Forrester has been covered in ADWEEK and WARC recently. (PDFs of articles below if links are broken.)

According to the articles, Forrester is stating that consumers don't trust the mass marketing messages cranked out by agencies and brands any longer. Instead, they are turning to family, friends and peers within their communities to help inform their purchasing decisions.

The report is also saying that to survive, agencies are going to have to change their ways from sending out one-way messages to taking part in communities and conversations. They go as far as saying that an example of this would be, "agencies comprised of community members – mothers for example, who would help, say, Procter & Gamble to play a constructive role within communities of other mothers."

Forrester believes creative and media agencies are lagging behind in truly integrating digital into their capabilities, quoting an unnamed client-side marketer as saying, "Most senior ad execs appear more comfortable with conventional channels, which they claim are 'integrated' because they have tacked on a website."

They state that digital agencies have a better understanding of how to deliver more "interactive" experiences but aren't competitive with the more traditional shops when it comes to branding skills.

Peter Kim, a Forrester Research analyst and co-author of the report, believes that there isn't an agency out there right now that represents what the agencies of five to 10 years from now will look like.

"I don't think agencies are going away," Kim said. "They're going to be the ones that help marketers to communities of mutual interest."

I completely agree that many agencies are out of touch and need to learn how to facilitate and participate in the conversations taking place vs. interrupting them. I'm also not surprised that they found people are distrustful of advertising and marketing messages as a whole. However, I don't believe the answer is an agency of mothers working with Proctor & Gamble to help them better communicate with this segment.

The answer, in my opinion, lies in agencies and their clients learning to look at things from a new perspective. Instead of looking at what brands can tell people, we instead need to be looking at what brands can do for people. How are people really using the products or services of your client? What are they actually saying about them? (No, not what they say in focus groups. What they really say about them.) What do they wish they could do better? What could brands do to make peoples' lives better/easier/happier/etc.?

It also means agencies and their clients need to start spending more time with the people who buy and use their products and services - both in the real world and where they spend time online. While communities and social networks are growing and expanding more and more every day online, people still do have lives outside of their computers and only looking at them through the monitor will not give you an accurate picture for how to create positive change.

Overall, a more collaborative model needs to take shape. One that more openly involves the interested parties in the process from the creation/evolution of products and services through how they are then communicated to the world. Instead of companies largely creating their products/services in isolated towers and agencies creating communications in theirs, both seeking only limited input from the people who will actually be on the receiving end of them, we are going to need to be more open and seek greater input and dig for richer insights with the people who actually use the products/services and receive the communications around them.

More thinking on this to come...

For a couple different views on the Forrester report, read what Mark Earls and Simon Andrews have to say.

For some interesting thoughts on new ways of approaching things, here is some thinking on marketing as a service and here is some more looking at using the idea of Transformation Design in terms of marketing.

Download the WARC article as a PDF.

Download the ADWEEK article as a PDF.