FIght Club iPhone 5 Case by Oyl Miller. Available on Society 6. Click here to view details.
Steve Jobs. By Oyl Miller. 2012.
NIKE RUN Like ME | GPS JAPAN RUN - Our Nike interactive Facebook runner just completed a 6-day run in which he GPS ran the outline of Japan’s islands. The video recapping his run just went live. Huge props to Joseph Tame for his planning and running efforts on behalf of Nike RUN Like ME.
Thanks for the quote @sneakerboxClyde!
When I first started in advertising, the industry was at the tail end of a very classical period. Projects would often take over a year, and the deliverables were primarily magazine ads and television commercials.
Anything on the Internet was considered a geeky experiment and not to be trusted. I joined Twitter during its first year, and I remember suggesting using it for a campaign. I was roundly laughed out of the room for my naivety. The same thing happened with proposing a campaign that would work entirely on Facebook.
Refresh your browser to today, when Twitter and Facebook have become a core consideration on every single advertising brief. Gone are the year-long concepting grinds. Replaced by a new kind of fluid client-agency partnership that takes incredible collaboration to meet the ever quickening deadlines. The process is often chaotic during the making of these things, but when the dust settles, we have projects that everyone takes pride in.
I think the model for advertising used to model the process cycle of filmmaking and the fine arts. But as technology has tipped into mainstream ubiquity, the advertising model I find myself operating in is closer to developing, programming and hacking. It’s our job to bring as much taste and aesthetics to this process, but you need to shift your mind into a perpetual beta state to keep up. The rules of the digital landscape are being written on a daily basis, so there can be seismic shifts mid-production, or even after launch. If you don’t find a way to cope with that new reality, you’ll go mad, and your projects will never be realized.
I find myself creating ‘theories’ more than concepts these days. While I always start from a core idea, I try to keep my mind loose, to be receptive to a range of executional options. I also try to use as many digital platforms and tools as possible, so that I constantly know where the edges of the playing field are.
It’s impossible to predict where tomorrow’s innovation will take us. All we can do is stay fluid and adapt. All we can do is be water, my friend. We can’t predict the future, but we can be smart about building a mobile foundation that will be able to react and take advantage of this constantly evolving digital landscape.
TweetIt’s time to retire the word Internet.
In its place we can simply say nothing, or we can say Life.
Listen, it’s not 1991 anymore. That year is finally over. Hamsters spinning on wheels are no longer a part of the ‘going online’ process. Our connection to the so-called Internet is more than 24/7. It’s not just a connection to a bunch of bits and bots. It’s a connection to each other. All of the fancy offerings and gadgets these days have been created to be more intuitive to provide a more fluid experience. All this means is that the technology is being rendered more and more invisible. Technology is just a time-erasing tool that has the power to stitch two sides of the globe together instantly.
Lags are minimal. The humanity is becoming maximal. Baby pictures, half eaten sandwiches, graduations, birthdays, favorite songs, you name it. These can all no be easily embedded into the conversations of our life. The great river or connectedness rolls on. You can contribute to the stream, or you can stay in your wi-fi-less cabin and pine for the Neanderthal days of geocities and Prodigy.
This is the new reality that everyone who wants to ‘connect’ needs to consider. Everything y build to launch into our new stream must be optimized for human consumption. If it looks, feels and works like it was made by robots, then it will probably only resonate with robots. And sadly, robots haven’t evolved to the point where their development can push the world forward. So until we arrive in some sort of dystopian world of ubiquitous AI, build things for humans.
Before you shove off in your technological raft to deliver your breakthrough product, take a long consideration about how humans work. Will your offering make our constant connection easier, more meaningful more human? Or are you adding more buttons because you think you should. Answer the central question of ‘why should I care?’ If you can craft compelling reasons for people to care deeply, your raft of technology is headed for the right current. If you can’t answer the ‘why’ part, then you may be in for a costly ride straight for a whirlpool of anti-progress.
The most powerful thing humans can do, have been the most powerful things they’ve always been able to do. The ability to make people feel. Make me laugh, make me cry, make me nostalgic, make me feel something. When I feel, I talk about it. I press buttons. I clap my hands like a circus monkey. If you can visualize your audience reacting like cymbal banging circus monkeys to your latest launch, launch it now. If not, hold back, and reengineer a bunch of humanity into the core, and release when it’s ready.
TweetNike Free Yasei Night. (:60 Teaser film)
Technology is not the revolution. Technology has existed from the time man built the first primitive tool. Technology is an evolution. The revolution lies in how people will use the tools of our time. Will they be happy to use new sophisticated tools to merely kill their time by sending videos of cats to their friends. Or will they search their souls, find their message and purpose first, and then use the relevant technology as a platform to express themselves. Where is the stuff worth finding? We are stuck in a frenzying beta loop of learning to ride the bicycle that is the Internet. That is constant-connectedness. We’ve all got our training wheels on still, and are sheepishly taking laps around the same familiar blocks. The neighborhoods where our friends are. The projects of Twitter, the (loosely) gated community of Facebook and long idle walks along the beaches of Google. Where is the depth to our curiosity? We’re stuck in a recyclists loop of reblogging. No original thinking. We’re content to sample the thinking and productions of others in hopes of giving ourselves a temporary status bump. In hopes of attracting spontaneous ‘likes.’ It has become our drug. We need those likes. We can’t remember what it was like before those likes. But the lasting nutritional value of this kind of cycle leaves us with an empty feeling. Every time we sit down at our computer, or pull one out of our pocket, are we just digitally snacking? Are we downing conceptual bags of Doritos with our online activity? Where is the beef? Where is the salad? What will round out our digital habits? If we are original. If we commit to producing a certain portion of original content and not just idling consuming. Original thinking, in ways big and small will be what tips the scales and leads to the next revolution. It’s a revolution that has been stalled. But man, do we have some awesome weapons ready for free thinking warriors who have an interest and passion for pushing us forward. Creativity will usher in the revolution. We’ve just experienced an unprecedented acceleration of technology that has taken us to futuristic places. And now, here we are, in danger of an epic stall. In danger of treading water. The next great leap in technology will be the leap in our ability to use it creatively. The competitive edge in every industry will come down to who champions the best creative thinking. As we all share the same working knowledge of our tools, it will be these creative free thinkers who can infuse cold technology with the inventiveness of the human spirit that will triumph. The same standard thought models will crumble, in favor of fresh thinking. Brand new ideas. The technology has become the messenger, but we must still responsibly craft our message. That goes for big brands. That goes for the individual. To advance as mankind, we must become much better at using the tools of our time. We must harness our spirits, distill them in ways optimized for our modern tools and then deliver them into the ether that is available to all.
