advergirl

I heart TED

There are three places that I turn to every week for inspiration and unforgettable stories: The Moth, This American Life, and TED Talks. TED is one of those brands that truly delivers on its promise - Riveting talks by remarkable people, free to the world

As this year comes to a close, I'm reminded of the three new-to-me-in-2009 talks that I can't stop passing on.

Stefana Broadbent: How the Internet enables intimacy

An amazing talk about how technology has transformed our worlds - empowering workers with access to their personal lives and connecting us in surprisingly personal and intimate ways.

Daniel Pink: The surprising science of motivation

Let's just say to begin with that he is entirely charming. In his introduction, he admits that "I graduated in the percent of my law school class that made the top 90% possible." But, then with simple illustrations and bold pronouncements shows us why the typical ways we try to motivate each other fail. "There's a mismatch between what science knows and business does."

Malcolm  Gladwell on spaghetti sauce

At once the story of the food industry’s pursuit of the perfect spaghetti sauce and ultimately what we know about human choice and happiness. Full of anecdotes you will use in meetings all year long. Did you know - most of us prefer milky, weak coffee. We just say we like a robust blend in focus groups.

Top 5 Ideas

I'm a big fan of the New York Times Magazine annual Year in Ideas issue. It uncovers both magical oddities and major shifts in consumer wants and needs (aka: trends). Here are my five favorites from their A>Z index of how our world is changing.

1. Good Enough Is the New Great. An idea I've been looking for words for - basically, "Companies that had focused mainly on improving the technical quality of their products have started to notice that, for many consumers, 'ease of use, continuous availability and low price" are more important'." Think Flickr, YouTube, iPods (vs. photo books, high def and stereos.) Today, it's often more about what's easy than what's the very best. That's a game changer.


2. An Advertisement that Watches You. Maybe an oddity for now or maybe where our world is going. Using a camera and face-tracking software, a poster in a Berlin bus shelter changed its content this year based on whether or not people were paying attention to it. Look away and the graphics change in your peripheral. The technology is improving all the time. Now it can even identify the sex of a passerby and dynamically change the graphics to match.
   


3. Random Promotions. You've heard, of course, of The Peter Principle - people are promoted to their level of incompetence. If you're good at doing, you get promoted to managing; good at managing, you get promoted to leading. Despite the fact that those three functions require entirely different skills. And, then you're stuck in that role until you use up all the equity that got you there. A new study found that promoting people entirely random improves the overall efficiency of a firm. So much for merit.
   


4. Printable Batteries. You probably remember Entertainment Weekly running the first video ad in a print publication this year. The technology to print those video ads is surprising accessible. The challenge has been how to power them. The solution is to print batteries too. This year, a research team at the Fraunhofer Research Institution for Electronic Nano Systems revealed a 0.6-millimeter-thick battery.
   


5. Subscription Artists. I love it when social gets all practical. You've probably heard of productive crowdsourced business models, like Edison Nation, iStock and Innocentive and do-good ones like Kiva and Microplace. A relatively new player in the field offers the best of both - it's Kickstarter. It offers artists a chance to put together business plans and engage subscribers or funders to pay for it. For perhaps the first time, an artist can quickly answer a nagging question: Does anyone actually want my art badly enough to pay for it?

The triumphant return of Artie Isaac

If you grew up in advertising in this town, there are certain legends you just know. The CCAD grad who built a national branding agency out of an old auto dealership. The fuzzy-headed agency founder known for stepping out of his sedan surrounded by Cheech-and-Chong-style plumes of sweet smoke. The soon-to-be mom who, pregnant and restless, cheffed up an ecommerce index that would be covered on CNN every holiday season for years to come. The uniting and dividing of a huge conglomerate agency designed to rule them all. The three friends who rallied a wholly unlikely new business win in Indy into a pharma empire. Ok, and, of course, the public affairs veteran who was heckled off the stage at the Addys after proclaiming (more than a few times) "green is the next internet."

But, there's one name, one man who we all know: Artie Isaac. With his round glasses and signature bow-tie, he is known Columbus-wide as one of the first to hang his shingle downtown and perhaps the only person ever to presume to run an advertising agency without owning a TV.

He surprised us all last year when he retired and sold Young Isaac to People to My Site. Of course, retirement for Artie looks as unlikely as do any of his other (ad)ventures. He built a crowdsourced speaker search site, started teaching at CCAD and OSU, became a regular at Luck Bros., and even launched an acting and playwrighting career.

See him next weekend (December10 - 13) doing a special fundraising event for local-favorite: Available Light Theater.

 

Xmas is a brand new adaptation of Charles Dickens' A Christmas Carol, retold with all the joy — and contemporary complexity — of the season. Shared in the way only a bow-tie clad, PowerPoint-wielding accountant could. Here's the story:

For 30 years, Winford Doke, CPA, has been the venerated host of ConAm’s Annual Xmas Spectacular (read: office holiday party!), featuring Winford’ glorious rendition of A Christmas Carol.

However, four hours ago Winford Doke was fired, leaving his assistant, Artie Isaac, to take over the holiday duties.

Taking the stage with no time to prepare, and only Doke’s stubborn stage hand, Jo Anne, to help him through it, Artie faces down the ultimate December Dilemma.

Please join us! Cheer on a Columbus advertising legend and get to know great (smart, funny) local theater. The recommended ticket price is $15 (or pay what you want). You can also buy limited edition (numbered, signed) prints of this delightful Artie painting by awesome local artist Ben Harben at the show.

Website

Buy tickets

Columbus Dispatch Review

Alive and Unedited Profile

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The new influencers: Grandparents weigh in

A new survey found a surprising trend: The nuclear family is losing ground to multigenerational living. More people are choosing to move themselves – and their children – in with Mom and Dad, often to cut costs.

Today, 6.2 million or 5.3% of all U.S. households are multigenerational – that’s up 120% in nine years.

These households are fundamentally different than those of the care-giving Oreo Generation. In 62% of these multigenerational cases it’s the adult children who are moving back with their parents, who are the grandparents. Three-fifths of these grandparents are providing some sort of financial assistance to their fully-grown children.

Three larger trends are making this an increasingly popular choice:

• Grandparents are doing better than most financially. That’s because 55% of grandparents do not carry a mortgage, and grandparents control more than half of the country’s wealth. So while grandparents have certainly taken a hit in this economy along with everyone else, they are, in many cases, more solvent than their young married children with young children.


• Grandparents are investing in their grandchildren. According to our recent national study, The Grandparent Economy, grandparents are spending about $32 billion on their grandchildren’s education, $11 billion on clothes for the kids, $6 billion on toys, and nearly $700 million on diapers.


• Decision-making is increasingly multi-generational. Whether it’s what first car to buy, where to go to college, or who to choose for insurance, grandparent’s are increasingly part of the decision making, both with their children and their grandchildren.

This trend not only provides more financial stability for the children and grandchildren, it appears to have rewards for the grandparents as well. Many grandparents say not only that they love having their family back under their roof; they also love being needed again. They say it brings purpose to their days, and meaning to their lives. The physical demand of keeping up with the kids makes them feel younger; outdoor play burns off both calories and tension; and helping with homework provides mental stimulation.