No one can hear Shatner scream in space

Some work I did for a recent BDW class. If you look closely you can see the man himself.

Napkin Labs visits Boulder Digital Works

During last Wednesday's Idea Studio at Boulder Digital Works, Napkin Labs co-founders Warren Ng and Riley Gibson stopped by to talk about starting up their company and how its model is changing the way companies handle product design.

What does Napkin Labs do?

Napkin Labs is a collaborative community based new product development consultancy. We are blending the creative energy of the 'crowd' with disciplined design processes to rapidly generate consumer-centric new product concepts rooted in the strengths of our clients' brands.

In other words, they curate a community of some the best young minds (from places like Carnegie Mellon, Stanford, and CU) and then set them loose on your project. They provide the structure throughout so everyone stays on track and incentivize participation by using an algorithm to measure how much each member contributed to the final output and paying out a reward accordingly.

Their approach goes beyond simple crowd-sourcing by: one, curating the people in their crowd and two, rewarding everyone based on participation rather than a winner-takes-all approach.

And then I was re-listening to this 2005 TED talk from Clay Shirky about institutions vs collaboration and I realized that Napkin Labs is essentially breaking down the institutional barriers he talks about here:


Shirky mentions how that as barriers to collaboration decrease (the web and web apps like Napkin Labs) people become more and more able to organize and collaborate in increasingly complex ways without the help traditionally needed from institutions. Shirky's vision is brought to life in exactly how Napkin Labs operates.

By connecting big organizations directly to crowds and managing the crowds in a hands-off way, Napkin Labs brings the best of both the institutional and the unruly masses worlds together. As institutions become more comfortable with this approach I think this will mean a sea-change will take place in the R&D world. Certainly, highly trained scientists and researches will never be replaced but think about the example Shirky uses above where a single Linux engineer contributes a single important patch and nothing else. He's probably not worth having on the payroll, but aren't you glad he contributed that one really important piece?

I believe the same sort of scenario will begin to play out across R&D and product design. While dedicated teams in institutions won't be replaced anytime soon, a lot of their work will begin to be offered out to Napkin Labs-esque organizations with excellent results.

It's exciting to see this glimpse into the future happen so close to home. Keep your eyes peeled for how Napkin Labs will help shape the future with your help.

The Ungrateful Bastards Indeed

Look, I'm not into tearing people down. If you want to hear negativity you can surely find some on this great big series of tubes. I'm all about going for it and kicking ass and optimism and teddy bears and bubbles. But everyone has to make exceptions.

A little backstory: I've somehow made it onto the PR list for DiGennaro Communications in NY. I guess it's because I run this here blog and they've decided the best way to reach out to bloggers is to crawl their emails rather than say hello. But at least it's usually relevant and cool work I get. I don't post it because that's probably not why you read this blog and besides, you can view it all on other blogs like Agency Spy or Ads of the World etc that post the work all the time.

So they send me this email:

Today, Y&R NY and VML launched a new website called “The Ungrateful Bastards.”

If you received a gift during the holidays that you don’t want (and who didn’t?), you can visit this site and trade for someone else’s unwanted gift.

Check out the site here: http://www.theungratefulbastards.com

“Because one man’s stupid, unwanted holiday gift is another man’s treasure.”

CREDITS:

Agency: Y&R NY and VML

Chief Creative Officers: Scott Vitrone, Ian Reichenthal

Creative Directors: Guillermo Vega, Icaro Doria

Managing Creative Director, VML: Jim Radosevic

Creative Director, VML: Mike Wente

Art Directors: Menno Kluin, Alex Nowak, Sandra Nicholas

Copywriters: Tiffani Lundeen

Illustrator: Peter Frendrik

Producer: Jo Kelly

Lead Developer: Frank Cefalu

Flash Developer: Marc Brown

Director of Technology: Martin Coady

And I follow the link to Ungrateful Bastards because it sounds like a fun, if unoriginal, idea.

And then I immediately regret doing so.

The site is, to put it mildly, underwhelming. And I'm not talking about the fact that there's about a dozen items on the site (including a hat listed under gadgets, which actually made me chuckle a bit.) I'm talking about the fact that this is a site from a global ad agency (Young & Rubicam) and a full-service digital agency (VML) and, even though it's obviously a fun side project, it looks like it was thrown together last night by the interns in a red-bull-induced-rave-state.

I'll just be frank: the site is bad. Really, just poorly done. Honestly, how many of those 15 (Fifteen!!!) actually worked on the project? Would they all still want their names attached to it if they saw the final result?

The people involved are no doubt talented (several were involved in the amazing Skittles work of several years ago) but the end result is woefully uninspired.

So is it any wonder that people have been less than eager to get involved with the site? It amazes me that an agency so big (Y&R claims 186 offices and 7,000 employees) and a self-proclaimed full service digital shop would ever let something like this out into the wild.

There are a few possibilities:

1. They actually think this is good
2. The interns did it and everyone else wanted credit (why?)
3. They don't care
4. They tried to be bad on purpose (but weren't bad enough to be funny-bad)

So how does it get better?
Let's break it down:

The Idea
It's been done, but hasn't everything at this point? The key is to do it better than anyone else has before or add a unique twist. Neither were done here, so that'd be where I'd start.

The Execution
The end result is not the effort of the 15 people credited. It's barely the effort of one skilled developer. People have a low tolerance for subpar design / usability these days when there is so much good design / usability being done. People also make judgments within seconds of visiting your site. Guess what people are thinking at first glance of the Ungrateful Bastards site. I think it's also worth considering who the work is coming from. If there was a college freshman behind this site I'd hold it to a bit different standard than a global ad empire.

The Usability
Finally, users have to be able to use the site they're at. Besides the aforementioned categorization confusion (which could have been intentional) I found frustration in clicking the button like objects on the site that were not in fact clickable buttons but rather fancy containers for the text which was the actual link. I'd also question the use of flash on the site in a seemingly uneccesary way. I know agencies love flash, but many users do not. Could another technology have accomplished the same thing (a countdown and a animated fireplace?) Also, I'm assuming the crackling sound emitted from the fireplace is for the kitsch effect but it's seriously annoying and cannot be disabled. If you're going to go kitsch go 100% or don't go at all.

The Bottom Line
I'm probably taking this whole thing too seriously but this is a symptom of a larger issue: how traditional agencies (and even digital ones) adjust to the new environment they operate in. If Y&R / VML had thought about their users a little more would this whole thing have been a lot better? It's hard to say what happened behind closed doors. If you're listening out there Y&R / VML, I think you know what I want to find in my inbox stocking next year.

Why Lala took over iTunes

You may have read that Apple bought cloud music streaming service Lala. Well, in my little Justinverse the opposite happened, Lala took over iTunes.

I've been using Lala for a couple years now. Originally I just wanted an easy way to stream my iTunes library at work. Now I simply want a piece of music management software that works.

I have a lot of music. Just over 15,000 songs clocking in at around 80 GBs to be exact. Moving that kind of library around from old computer to new computer or even just to a new hard drive on the same computer is a serious pain in the ass through iTunes. I've tried using their preferred way of doing it and I've tried moving everything through Windows and then pointing iTunes back to the library and I've even tried storing it on an external drive to keep my laptop's hard drive freed up. Every time iTunes can't find songs or can't find my library at all in the case of my laptop (despite my mapping of the drive to always show up as the same "letter.")

While I can't give up on iTunes for syncing my iPhone / iPod, I have given up on it for doing what it was originally supposed to do: play my goddamn music.

I've found a better solution through Lala. I've synced up all my purchases and uploaded any songs they didn't have so now my whole collection resides in the cloud (a long process, but once it's done, it's done.) I can play it from any computer with an internet connection (if I could stream it from my phone it'd be perfect!)

So now that Apple has bought Lala I'm left wondering what the future of Lala's service looks like. Reports seem to indicate that Apple wants access to Lala's brilliant engineers more than their service. Here's to hoping that the core service sticks around for a while, at least until Apple can play catch up in the very category it created.

This is the [year, day, month, moment] you've been waiting for

Every new year is filled with a lot of looking backward (see my own 10 best albums of the decade) and looking forward but not so much focus on the present. I guess the prevailing thought is that the best times are long gone or just ahead of us. Well, this won't be the first (or last) time the prevailing thought is wrong.

Right now is the best time to [insert thing you've been wanting to do.]

Seth Godin decided that today was the best day back in 2007 when things actually seemed pretty good:

Here's a question that you should clip out and tape to your bathroom mirror. It might save you some angst 15 years from now. The question is, What did you do back when interest rates were at their lowest in 50 years, crime was close to zero, great employees were looking for good jobs, computers made product development and marketing easier than ever, and there was almost no competition for good news about great ideas?

Many people will have to answer that question by saying, "I spent my time waiting, whining, worrying, and wishing." Because that's what seems to be going around these days. Fortunately, though, not everyone will have to confess to having made such a bad choice. (read the original)

And he revisited that mentality today on his blog:

The oughts (the "uh-ohs"?) were a tough decade on a macro level. Front page news events will give the textbooks plenty to write about in the years to come.

But on a micro level, on a personal level, this was a decade filled with opportunity. The internet transformed our lives forever. Opportunities were created (and many were taken advantage of). And, like every decade, just about everyone missed it. Just about everyone hunkered down and did their job or did what they were told or did what they thought they were supposed to, and just about everyone got very little as a result. (read the original)

For those of you who like to take your information visually, here's Hugh MacLeod's cartoon in the same vein:

There will never be another time quite like now to launch a new company, quit your job, or be a part of something great. The time to do your life's work is now.

This is it.
Fight like hell.
Happy New Year.

RSS Feed fixed, you can now return to your regularly scheduled reading

I noticed my RSS feed got screwed up when I switch my blog over to its new home with new and improved look. It's fixed now so you might see a bunch of stories pop up all at once.

Oh, and I'm changing this blog's name to "ThisJustin" and changing the subtitle to more clearly reflect what I'm interested in--digital creativity. The focus, or lack thereof will remain the same. I like it, hopefully you do to. This should all be transparent to you, I'm keeping the site's feed address the same to prevent you from having to do anything.

Thanks for reading and happy new year,
Justin

Justin's Top 10 Albums of the Decade: 2000-2009

Sure there are a lot of top 10 lists floating around right now but (of course) I don't think any of them got it quite right, so here goes. (think I'm way off? write your own damned list in the comments)

10. Old Ramon - Red House Painters (2001)

Ok, so I have a confession to make: this album was recorded in '97-98 and then caught up in business bullshit until its 2001 release, so maybe it doesn't qualify as a 00-09 decade release. But you know what? I only discovered it last year, so deal with it. Something about the repetitive rhythm of driving guitars spread out across eight-and-a-half minutes of Mark Kozelek's beautifully direct lyrics on In Between Days put me right back in San Francisco; walking along the Embarcadero, cold, February rain sprinkling down, an ocean mist stinging my eyes and the girl I love right there next to me, neither of us concerned with anything but the present. Now if you'll excuse me, I have a few plane tickets to book...

9. Hissing Fauna, Are you the Destroyer? - Of Montreal (2007)
I wasn't sure what to think the first time I heard Hissing Fauna. It felt too dance-pop and just not my style. But then I couldn't stop listening to it. Slowly but surely I was drawn in. The hyper-pop-fuzz of songs like Suffer for Fashion, Cato as a Pun and Bunny ain't no Kind of Rider were pure fun to listen to. Driving along I couldn't but bob my head along with the beat. And then, after a few days of bouncing around in my car like a schoolgirl something else happened: I began to internalize the lyrics and the songs took on a wholly different meaning. Suddenly the epic ender The Past is a Grotesque Animal didn't feel so out of place but rather the perfect ending to an album about so much more than it appears to be.

8. Funeral - Arcade Fire (2004)
When the wall of sound, fury and passion that is Funeral hit me the only thing I could think of was "How come I haven't heard of these guys before?" The brilliant songwriting that mixes somewhat melancholy lyrics with driving, impassioned musical performances was love at first listen for me. When I heard Crown of Love on an early season episode of Rescue Me and saw how beautifully the music played against powerful scenes in the show and then built up into the pounding ending, my only thought was I have to see these guys live... something I'm still waiting to do.

7. The Ugly Organ - Cursive (2003)
Just before a cross-country trip to Maine, a friend had given me a copy of The Ugly Organ with instructions to simply "just listen." Well, in the days before ubiquitous iPods and multi-CD changers, 36 hours roadtrips offered A LOT of time to "just listen" when you couldn't reach the CD case and your co-pilot was asleep. I still remember, quite vividly, driving into Bangor, Maine at dusk when The Recluse came on--maybe for the 6 or 7th time. It stuck with me this time, as did most of the album, and solidified Tim Kasher in my mind as one of the most brilliant and underrated singer / songwriters of the decade.

6. Give Up - The Postal Service (2003)
Already well in love with Death Cab for Cutie's incredible early work (as for their last two albums...) I quickly jumped at the chance to hear Ben Gibbard try something new on Give Up. It struck me as fun and infinitely listenable--a theory that would be tested over and over again in the next six years. During every party we hosted during college there was the inevitable party-playlist building session and every time it was decided "put the whole Postal Service album on." And no one, not a single person, ever uttered "ugh, change the song" when The Postal Service played. Never. Dozens of parties and hundreds of people agree: everyone loves The Postal Service.

5. Figure 8 - Elliott Smith (2000)
If I'd written this list between 2002-04 it may very well have been all Elliott. Introduced to him via Good Will Hunting, I fell into a deep obsession with Smith's darkly haunting, yet often hopeful songwriting. A string of failed relationships and my big "college breakup" helped fuel a need in me for the sort of cathartic listening that Smith's music provided. I went so far as booking time in my school's recording studio to produce my own version of a few of Smith's songs (which will remain unreleased, btw.) Eventually I began to grow out of Smith's songs--or rather--I became much more optimistic and happy but that fact remains that he still hits an emotional chord in me that few other musicians have ever managed to do.

4. Album of the Year (acoustic) - The Good Life (2004)
This album secures Tim Kasher's spot as my vote for best songwriter of the decade. "The first time that I met her I was throwing up in a ladies room stall / she asked me if I needed anything / I said I think I spilled my drink" begins the title track, which is a summary of the story the rest of the album tells about a failed relationship. "You never fell for me / you fell for how it felt / you fell for being held" begins Needy with Kasher's "let me tell you a story just like it happened" style. A stark contrast to fellow Saddle Creek label-mate Conner Oberst's often beautiful but much more metaphorical lyrical style.

3. Chutes too Narrow - The Shins (2003)
I remember the first time I heard Chutes too Narrow, my roommate freshman year of college brought it home and told me I needed to hear this. After the first few songs I said "Is this country?" and quickly dismissed it. Looking back I'm not sure what made me think that, other than at the time, nothing on my radar quite sounded like The Shins. There were stripped down and bare. No heavy guitars or crunching distortion--just straight ahead rock and roll fun. I finally came around and fell in love with them. The rest, as they say, is history.


2. Agaetis Byrjun - Sigur Ros (2000)
Shortly after I became obsessed with figuring out what the song is that play's over the final scene in Vanilla Sky, a friend gave me this album to try out and everything clicked--Sigur Ros (the Vanilla Sky song is NjóSnavéLinin off their ( ) album.) There really isn't anything or anyone who sounds quite like Sigur Ros. From their use of Icelandic and made-up Hopelandic lyrics to lead singer Jonsi's use of a cello bow on his guitar, there just isn't anyone else making music on the level that Sigur Ros is. I keep a CD in my car at all times that has the title track, Agaetis Byrjun on it. When the world seems a little too heavy and fast-paced and the stress is piling up I put the track on, take a deep breath and think, "You know what?, This is An Alright Beginning (Agaetis Byrjun translated) to a wonderful day."

1. Come on Feel the Illinoise - Sufjan Stevens (2005)
You can't help but feel it when listening to Illinoise: feel that Sufjan may be one of the most talented singer / songwriters ever to tell someone (or someplace) else's stories. While no one is doubting the brilliance of tracks like Chicago and Jacksonville, I firmly believe that Casimir Pulaski Day may be the most beautifully tragic song ever recorded. My roadtrip several months ago to see him live reaffirmed my admiration to his talent and humble brilliance. Sure, he may never complete, or even add another album to, his 50 states project, but so long as he stays true to his goofy, banjo-playing, wing-wearing, completely original self, I'll keep on feeling every bit of noise he puts out.

The Boulder Digital Works 12/10 Project

Why would someone drop everything for more than a year to enroll in a completely untested program that vowed to teach the world of digital and interactive in a way never done before? The first class of 12 students in Boulder Digital Works’ (BDW) first 60 Weeks program answer that question in their new short film called The 1210 Project.

The 1210 Project is named after what will be the students’ final day of BDW 60 Weeks, December 10, 2010. The video explores the twelve students’ motivation for jumping onboard Boulder Digital Works’ 60 Weeks program inaugural voyage. Some of the students enrolled after hearing about the program with only weeks before its start. The film looks at what the students have learned, considers their hopes and plans for the program’s remaining 50 weeks and focuses on their dreams, goals and predictions.

These 12 students, who range in age from 22 to 48, have been exposed to some of the best of the best in digital and interactive over the past 10 weeks. Their brains are buzzing and the walls of BDW are bulging with possibility.

There is much work to do leading up to 12/10/10 and years of work after that, but there is no doubt there will never be a year quite like the one that lies directly ahead. Follow my fellow Boulder Digital Works students over the next year at http://bdw.colorado.edu/blogs/60weeks

Help Ad2 Denver's Public Service Campaign

The poster to the left says it all, click to make it bigger and I'll see you at Cactus!

It's about to get crazy in here

I've been working on a site re-design as part of a project at Boulder Digital Works. I'm just about ready to push it live. That means I'm going to screw things up and learn along the way. So be ready for a disruption in the space time continuum. If the site never comes back up again know that I must have stumbled upon some new quirk in html5 that allows for the creation of black holes. Either that or I gave it all up to work on a small farm in Iowa. Either possibility is equally likely at this point.

Sufjan Stevens rocks Madison

Here's a long overdue update from the Sufjan Steven's concert last month.

Since Sufjan hasn't toured much lately, a few friends and I decided to make the trek up to Madison, WI to see him play, the closest he would come to Denver. When it was all said and done we had a great time and the concert totally rocked our socks off. Here's a sampling of what we saw: some old songs, some new, all awesome.




I have a few general criteria for what makes a concert awesome to me and Sufjan hit almost all of them:

1- Be interesting - Sufjan made some great banter between songs. I hate it when the only thing a musician says is "thanks" and then keeps on playing.

2-Give me something unique - I've already bought the album, so mix it up a little bit and give me something I can't get anywhere else. Sufjan certainly did by not only playing brand new songs but also re-arranging older ones to fit the band he was touring with.

3-Show some energy - Sufjan did a pretty good job of looking like he was into the music and enjoying himself up there. I like that.

4-Smash something - OK, maybe it's a stretch, but I really want to see a musician smash an instrument after - or even during - a show. Sufjan didn't smash anything but I guess I can forgive him.

Do you want more users or the right users?

I'm a big fan of the Wall Street Journal. I became addicted to the paper while studying at the University of Northern Colorado. The college of business received a large supply of WSJ's every day and students were encouraged to grab one. I did. Every day. Towards the end of my time at UNC the paper became a talking point at the beginning of most of my classes. Professors were encouraged to use the WSJ as sort of a real-time textbook of sorts to augment what we were learning.

After graduating I was left with a conundrum: how to feed my addiction to the WSJ's reporting without breaking the bank. Subscriptions to the WSJ are prohibitively expensive for someone graduating into a recession with uncertain at best job prospects. So I did what most of my generation does: I went online. That was until I realized that many of the articles I wanted to read required a paid subscription.

Over the next several months I learned to get my info elsewhere--from sources that were free. Then I got an iPhone and installed the WSJ app. I was in love again. That was until earlier this week.

Upon opening the app for my several-times-a-day check of what's happening in the world, I was greeted by a message telling me that the WSJ app was going to a paid subscription model as well.

All of this got me thinking about the relationship between users and a service. Is it better to have more users or the right users? (this statement assumes that those users willing to pay for your service are the right users and that you can't have it both ways, i.e. having lots of users means having many that aren't your ideal user)

Services like the WSJ that have chosen to make users pay for content have seemingly determined that it is better to have the right users...or have they? Perhaps they've simply decided to generate more revenue regardless of whether the people they want reading their content are or not.

On the flip side there are a lot of examples of sources of content that are simply happy to have lots of users. In fact, many major blogs derive part of their value from having such a large and engaged following that is adding comments and interacting with their content.

I'm not sure that either way is right or wrong but I do feel that companies need to be thinking about questions like this when they decide to go to a subscription based model or when they likewise go to a free model. The old method of merely thinking about profits and losses is less applicable today. Today it's about users, engagement and content creation.

So what do you want? More users or the right ones?

Boulder Digital Works

I found out last week that I'm amongst the 16 students admitted to the first class at the Boulder Digital Works. I'm excited, and nervous, and excited some more all at once. It's an incredible opportunity, one that I see as a potentially life changing.

If you're not sure what Boulder Digital Works is you can find out more on their website. Simply put, it's a school for developing future digital leaders. With partners that include a who's who of the digital advertising world it is definitely a program with potential. Huge potential.

Right now I'm figuring out how to pay for the tuition ($25k, and because it's not a degree bearing program, most government loans don't apply) pay for living expenses while attending and still kick ass in the actual program itself. It's going to be a tough balance of debt, work and school.

The whole thing has the potential to weigh me down for the rest of my life with debt or put my career into overdrive and launch me into the sort of places I've only dreamed of.

I'm hoping that by leveraging the things I can control (my hard work, effort, etc) I can overcome the things I have less control over (my lack of money, the economy, etc).

One thing is for sure: it'll be interesting.

20SB Blog Swap: the state that i am in.

Hi everyone! I'm Erin and I usually blog over at the state that i am in. Justin and I were paired together for the 20sb Blog Swap, so we're swapping blogs today. Yes, I am aware that the blog swap was last week, but we just couldn't get our acts together in time. Oops.

Anyhow, since Justin writes about advertising, I thought I'd share what I consider to be a fairly off-putting piece of advertising. Observe:



The women who use this razor walk past bushes that magically get trimmed down. Ummm, just what are you implying here Schick? I mean, the bush reference is obvious, but is that really the best way to get the ladies to want to buy your razor? I can tell you that from my perspective, I certainly wouldn't buy it based on that commercial. I might even go so far as to deliberately not buy it because of the commercial. I just really don't want to equate my personal hygeine with bush trimming. Even if that's what the product is intended for! Certainly, I find the commercial amusing, but I don't really think it does the best job of selling the product! What are you thoughts on this commercial?
- Show quoted text -

Next Creatives

The New Denver Ad Club and Ad2 Denver have teamed up to bring young creatives the opportunity to sharpen their skills and strengthen their spines. Next Creatives is a program where creatives get briefed by top Denver area CDs (like Mike Sukle of Sukle, Gregg Bergan of Pure, Norm Shearer of Cactus, and Jonathan Schoenberg of TDA to name a few) then work their ass off to create the next big idea. All along the way they get feedback that actually makes them better, not just some nice words.

Next is free (to paying members of Ad2 Denver or NDAC, but you're already a member, right?) and applications are due August 5th for this first round.

You can find out more by following @NextCreatives (and also request a few choice words be given as a smackdown to someone on twitter) or by emailing nextcreatives@ad2denver.com

To see what nice words get you, take a look at these videos below, then apply to Next:

Steal this Idea: #2 - Making Radio Relevant Again

You know all those crazy ideas you have? The ones that are really cool and maybe even revolutionary, but you would never be able to do anything with them. Maybe they're for an industry outside your own or an industry or company that doesn't really solicit or care to hear new ideas. We'll normally I'd just file them away in a lonely corner space of my idea file but now I have a place to let them free. So go ahead, take these ideas and make them happen, I dare you.

Ok, got an idea here that has two potential implementers: big radio (looking at you, Clear Channel) or small-indie-start-up net radio Jelli.

Right now, traditional, broadcast rado, kinda sucks. It's been sucking for a long time and it's only gotten worse with competition from I-know-exactly-what-you-want-to-hear-next, algorithm driven, internet radio. But maybe there's a way to improve the traditional radio experience and leapfrog it ahead of internet radio. Ok, at least catch it up.

Radio, like all the other so-called "traditional" media, is mainly a one-way communication channel. Sure, listeners can call in to make requests (and as of late, email or tweet them in too) but for the most part it's a DJ blathering on about something semi-relevant while queuing up the next corporate-mandated song. Since you (as the listener) have little input over what is played we tend to gravitate towards the station that plays the most of what we want to hear, thus freeing us from switching stations every other song while we're driving.

What hasn't hit radio yet (that I'm aware of) is the social, web 2.0 revolution.

Enter a service like Jelli (which I've mentioned before) that makes radio much more social. Now you're not just a listener, but an active participant in voting up what you want to hear next, voting down what you don't and chatting about what's currently playing with fellow users.

What happens is that traditional radio licenses (or develops on their own) a platform like Jelli's for their stations. Remember that one of my main criticisms about Jelli when I reviewed it was that you had everyone (and their musical tastes) in one room. As a result no one really got to hear what they wanted consistently. With an existing radio station that problem is taken care of as the filtering is already done. Those who listen to an indie rock station aren't going to be looking for Celine Dion. Those who listen to a classic rock station aren't going to be looking for, well, Celine Dion either. This puts listeners with similar tastes in pools together and lets them decide what is played.

But wait! OMG! How will radio make any money without ads!

The great thing about a platform like Jelli is that you are checking the home page a lot. It's updated constantly to reflect the ever changing votes determining what's played next so you are always paying attention, unlike other internet radios. This presents a fantastic opportunity for advertising to be inserted that will more than likely be looked at. And since you have additional information being captured (what's being voted up or down) you can make some assumptions about who's listening and serve them more relevant advertising. Got a lot of punk rock being voted up? Serve up an ad for a skate shop or tattoo parlor (obviously a stereotype, but you get the idea.)

But what about those listening in their cars, do they get a commercial free listen? I don't know, I can't solve everyone's problems all at once so I guess some things are going to have to be left up to those who implement this idea.

What about payola and all that cash that record labels pay big radio to play the same six songs over and over again? Fuck it. Seriously. It's time for radio to reinvent itself and obsolete itself before something else does. (I attribute the quote of "Obsolete yourself before someone else does to a Wall Street Journal about Netflix from a few years back regarding instant viewing. Smart thinking.)

The end result of all this is that radio stations get more engagement with its viewers, more two-way interaction, possibly more relevant advertising (which should lead to more effective advertising) and a path forward in our increasingly digital future. Who's gonna be the first to jump?

Steal This Idea: #1 - Smarter Cars (and everything else)

You know all those crazy ideas you have? The ones that are really cool and maybe even revolutionary, but you would never be able to do anything with them. Maybe they're for an industry outside your own or an industry or company that doesn't really solicit or care to hear new ideas. We'll normally I'd just file them away in a lonely corner space of my idea file but now I have a place to let them free. So go ahead, take these ideas and make them happen, I dare you.

My car has one of those sensors on it that automatically turn on the lights if it senses "darkness," maybe yours does too. Trouble is, often this "darkness" isn't really darkness, it's just me sitting at a red light under an overpass. Or my car being parked in the carport. But hey, what are you gonna do, it's just a stupid little sensor, right?

Here's what I'm thinking: my car has enough information to make a better decision, it just doesn't currently use it. There's a clock in my car, probably yours too. My car's clock currently doesn't know its am from pm, but I'm sure a small and inexpensive upgraded part could. Now, armed with the ability to know what time of day it is my car could make a much more informed decision about turning my lights off or on. Perhaps between the hours of 9am and 5pm my car could require five minutes of darkness before turning on the lights rather than the current 30 seconds or so. That would take care of most all the shade you would encounter and still allow the sensor to preform the safety function it was originally set out to do.

This also got me thinking, what else out there could be making smarter decisions if it was using all the information at its disposal?

When Democracy isn't What the People Want

Recently I've given Jelli.net to see if it lives up to its promise to be the future of internet radio. The difference between Jelli and, well, just about every other internet radio is that Jelli opens up the playlist to its users and lets them vote on what is next from anything in their catalog. At first thought, this seems really cool. The thought that (for now) it's just you and a few dozen other users sorting through the catalog and pulling out and voting up the best of the best is pretty appealing. Ideally this would be a great way to discover new music. Sort of like sitting down with your BFF of Music and sharing iTunes libraries on a rainy afternoon.

In reality, Jelli is like that point in every party where everyone's had six too many and wants to hear THEIR favorite song. So every 30 seconds someone else is grabbing at the ipod "No, dude, you gotta hear THIS!."

And this is where Jelli fails. You'd be hard pressed to put three people in a room and have their musical tastes match up, let alone dozens of random people from all over the net. What happens is lots of crap you don't want to listen to (at all, not just stuff you've never heard before) mixed with the occasional track you love because you sat there and voted it up and rocketed (each user can send a track to the top, called rocketing) and generally spent 10 minutes voting down other songs to finally hear what you want.

But it's not all bad news. I think there's hope for Jelli if they are willing to segregate people out a little bit. Make separate "rooms" for various genres, thus semi-guaranteeing that you are surrounded by people with similar musical tastes. This eliminates the Metallica fans from having to deal with the Celine Dion fans and visa versa. Yeah, maybe that limits your exposure to diverse music, but there's a reason I (and presumably you) don't listen to the Adult Contemporary / Top 100 FM radio station - you know what (specific) genre you like and you want to hear a few hits you know and some new stuff you don't.

Another use I could see is traditional radio stations (that already have their niche / genre set) adopting the Jelli platform for requests and determining their playlists, even if only during a certain time. 105.3 FM in San Francisco lets Jelli control its playlist every Sunday night from 10-midnight. With Jelli's integrated chatroom and constantly updated voting it'd be a great way to re-engage listeners and you could easily display some ads (like what you would normally hear) alongside the music to keep the revenue coming in. And unlike other net radio sites, Jelli encourages you to keep watching its page since it constantly is updating.

It'll be interesting to see where the future takes Jelli, perhaps a larger user base will make it better as the crowd ebbs and flows with support for various genres / artists. In any case, it's a good step forward for internet radio. For now I'll stick with my iTunes library, but I'll keep half an ear on Jelli just in case it turns into something worth listening too.

The Real Laptop Hunters

Funny or Die spoofs the MS "Laptop Hunters" campaign from CP+B with some hilarious results:

Laptop Hunters: Jake - watch more funny videos

Do you REALLY want to hear from me?

Busy night for me and @CeramicErin so we picked up some take and bake pizzas from Papa Murphy's. I noticed something weird about the included coupon sheet.

On one side was the suggestion to give them feedback on your experience and get $1 off.

On the other was a $2 off coupon. No work required.



I wonder which one most people do?

We live in an age where feedback is more valuable than ever to corporations. Every day thousands of consumers interact with them through new mediums like twitter and thousands more through more traditional means like phone surveys. Corporations should realize the value of those willing to reach out to them and reward them for their time. Rather than give me the lowest value coupon they offer for taking five minutes of my time, Papa Murphy's should offer free breadsticks or similar side with my next order. By giving me a side item like that they can give me greater value (worth $3.99 or whatever) that probably only costs them half of that. Now that's a win-win.

The Cactus Bike From Work Bash

Be there, June 24th. Proceeds benefit Wish for Wheels.

The gap between ability and taste

Ira Glass of NPR's This American Life talks about the battle young creative people have between their ability and their taste. What a great insight.

The Odell Brewing TwitterBrew

One (of the several) projects I've been working on lately that is consuming my life (in the best way possible) is brewing a beer via twitter for Odell Brewing in Fort Collins, CO.

After having the idea back in January, I worked with Reel Motion Media to pitch the idea to Odell's. In April we finally began bringing it to life and the rest is well documented history (search for the hashtag #odelltwitbrew to see the history on twitter.)

If you're reading this before 7am MDT on 5/29/09 go vote for your favorite label design for the beer.

And now it's all culminating in the release of the beer, Blackbird, this Saturday May 30th at the brewery in Fort Collins. You can see details on Upcoming or Facebook.

I'd love to see you at the event. If you find me and tell me you read about this on my blog I'll buy you a pint.

I'll be sharing more learnings from this project in the future when I have time to reflect on it. Stay tuned.

The Death of Mediocre

I'm not interested in about 95% of everything Hugh Macleod (gapingvoid) publishes. Ironically, it took him publishing an article about how 95% of advertising is dreck to get me to realize that. The 5% that I am interested in is so powerful that I wade through the other 95% to find it. But I'm not here to discuss the merits and pitfalls of following Hugh, well actually, I am, in a way.

There's a fascinating video in Hugh's latest post with Clay Shirky discussing "Gin and the Cognitive Surplus" at Web 2.0 in San Francisco. And this is what really got me thinking.



(read the transcript here)

What Clay is talking about is the shift from media as consumption (i.e. watching TV) to media as producing, sharing and yes, still consuming but to a lesser extent. He estimates that Americans spend 200 billion hours watching TV in an average year. If the whole of Wikipedia represents 100 million hours of human thought then all that TV watching is equal to 2000 Wikipedias being created each year, if all of that time was shifted to something else. Of course, all of that time isn't being devoted to other projects, but even a small shift can create big changes. Think of all the things you see on the internet and wonder "Where did they get the time?" Well, there's your answer.

So back to Hugh, and his 95-5 "dreck intolerance" principle. If we take and combine it with Clay's thoughts, what do we get?

We get people moving away from TV due to the fact that 95% of it is shit, or dreck. We get people moving into other realms, for example the net where 95% of it is still shit, but it's a much bigger pile overall. I don't believe that anyone can claim to even have read 5% of the net. You'd be hard pressed to have even viewed 1% of all of the sites that are out there. Compare this to the fact that most of us have seen 95% of the channels offered on TV (even the obscure cable ones.)

What you get is the internet as a giant filter. There are so many sites you can possibly go to, you can only possibly go to a small handful.

Therefore, you only spend time going to those that interest you.

And thus, the internet filters out the dreck, the boring, the mediocre, even the very good for the most part (look at all those Youtube videos with 10 views.) That is the shift that Hugh is talking about when he discusses what is really killing advertising (as we have known it.) Watch TV for a few hours (as Hugh mentions) do you think any of those ads you saw would garner more than a few thousand views on Youtube, where people have a choice in their consumption? Most likely not. And yet they are still produced because too many people in too powerful a position still believe that the public is a consumer waiting to be force-fed.

Those who understand that every eyeball has a choice, that every input must pass through a filter, that people want to share and interact with what they consume and that modern media consumption is no longer a well-balanced plate but rather a limitless buffet of choices, those are the people who will prosper in the future.

The producers, whether they be ad agencies, bloggers, or something else, who continue to survive on mediocre output will find that their days are numbered.

Mediocre is dying a slow death.
Thanks for taking the time to filter through the dreck and find this post.

Justin McCammon Portfolio Update

A new, updated portfolio reflecting some of my more recent work.

Justin_McCammon_Portfolio_April2009.pdf