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February 13, 2012

Daily Email Promo from Gapingvoid on Vimeo.

Hola, Jason here (CEO of gapingvoid etc etc)… For all you gapingvoid newbies, you may not know that we publish a daily email every Tuesday – Saturday. It always contains one of Hugh’s cartoons with a little narrative and sometimes an exclusive deal on gapingvoid goodies.

We’ve been playing around with animation and the one above is a little eight-second promo that we want to use to call attention to the daily email. Although it works great as is, we’d like to add some copy to it, and so, Fearless Readers, we are going to have a little competition for the best copy as judged by us.

Here is how we are going to do it:

Simply suggest the copy to go with it, in twelve words or less.

In other words, we need 12 words to go with the video, to explain what the story is.

The winner will get a free framed cube grenade of her choosing, signed and inscribed by Hugh (a $200 value) and if you have a blog or site, we’ll link back to it AND give you a mention on the actual video, etc.

Normally, this is the kind of things we’d do ourselves, but what the heck, sometimes “open source” is more fun for everybody.

Thanks, and looking forward!

Jason Korman

February 13, 2012

Isn’t marketing much nicer, when people treat each other like grownups?

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[A screenshot from the video: a Rackspace banner, in my handwriting etc.]

I love this Rackspace video. No thespian voiceover. No pompous top-down message yak yak yak about how great they are.

In this video, they’re not saying it, they’re SHOWING it.

What are they showing? Well, that’s for us to figure out, all by ourselves.

Isn’t marketing much nicer, when people treat each other like grownups?

[Disclosure: Rackspace is a gapingvoid client. And a damn good one, I might add. Check out our work here etc.]

February 13, 2012

Good corporate social media is WAY harder than it looks

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Good corporate social media is REALLY, REALLY hard… WAY harder than it looks. A few people like my good friend, Brian Solis, make it look easy, but they’re the exception, BY FAR.

My prediction for social media in 2012, is that A LOT of people will finally figure that out, the hard way.

So be careful what you wish for etc.

February 10, 2012

Inspire, or die trying.

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[Originally sent out in today’s newsletter etc. Buy the print here etc etc.]

Like I said on Twitter earlier today, the people who REALLY taught me “How To” do anything worthwhile, didn’t write a big ol’ list of instructions, didn’t hold my hand, they just led by example.

The great British advertising man, Dave Trott once did that for me, back in the day…

THIS is what REAL leadership means. THIS is what REAL inspiration means.

And you’d better get used to it. Because in the world we now live in, there are no more jobs. There are no more bosses. There are only clients and customers from now on.

The employees who don’t get that, are dead in the water. And so are the “bosses” who still like to be treated as “bosses”. Good riddance to them all.

So… go read Dave Trott’s stuff. Find out who he is. Go learn from a MASTER. Do it. Rock on.

February 9, 2012

Why “Only connect” is my favorite marketing strategy.

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Thanks to Chris for sending me this photo, via Twitter.

The gapingvoid Valentine print he ordered, just as he was opening the box. A delighted customer, so it seems. Hurrah!

I love getting stuff like this from people, and not just because “Social Proof is the new marketing” yada, yada, yada.

As artists and/or marketers and/or business people, it’s not enough to just think about the money and the ROI. We need to know that we “connected”, somehow. Deeply so, sometimes.

Or else we just become very dull, making very dull stuff for very dull people, living very dull lives.

Which except for the occasional faceless corporation, is not much of a sustainable business model.

E.M. Forster’s very famous advice to aspiring authors had a mere two words: “Only connect.”

Exactly. In both art and business.

Only connect.

Think about it.

February 9, 2012

Greeting Cards… Now Unavailable At gapingvoid!

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I love this. A gapingvoid greeting card, newly printed, the finest inks on on the finest card stock yada, yada, yada.

No, we’re not selling them anytime soon. We sent them out to everybody who ordered one of our “Love Prints” in time for Valentine’s Day etc etc.

How do you make something ubiquitous seem valuable to people? A nice greeting card, for example? Something that you normally can find in any shopping mall for the price of a cup of coffee?

By making it scarce. Exactly. Special. Exactly. By making it NOT available in any shopping mall, by making it NOT for sale, at any price (within reason). Exactly.

Early on, Jason (my business partner these last eight years) and I figured out that gapingvoid would probably NEVER BE big and mainstream, a-la Dilbert or Doonesbury.

So there was NO POINT doing the same marketing as Dilbert or Doonesbury. Or anybody else, for that matter.

Like ol’ Steve said, think different.

You?

February 8, 2012

My next book… and some personal thoughts on the future of the economy.

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[The paperback galley copies. It’ll actually be coming out in hardback and Kindle only etc.]

I already broke the news on Twitter a while back, but yeah, gapingvoid Book Number Three comes out in April [Amazon pre-order link here].

Like I said earlier:

Think of it a wee love letter to the blog. As everything and everybody gets swallowed up by Facebook, Google+ and other “Death Stars”, remember the importance of having one’s own piece of real estate to call one’s own…

It’s also very, very short. I was in Brevity Mode at the time. And I made sure to put lots of new cartoons in there, just like last time.

I also didn’t write it for the “social media pundit” yakkin’ crowd. I wrote it for your Cousin Al, something just to plant a seed in his head. Hopefully one day it’ll sprout something.

What’s really interesting to me about the book is the timing. In a year where you can’t turn on the news without some pundit asking, “Where are all the new jobs are going to come from”, this might hint at a good answer, of sorts.

Because the way the economy is evolving, the new jobs are going to come from people who are predisposed to blogging in their underwear, anyway. The people who quit their dead-end, pen-pushing jobs, got a second mortgage, turned their spare bedroom into an office and basically risked everything to pursue their dream. And started a blog to help get the word out.

The people who don’t have to wear an tie and go to endless boring meetings seven hours a day for a living.

The people who actually MAKE stuff. The people who actually create real, thriving businesses from scratch. Up and at ‘em by six a.m. Before they’ve had their first cup of coffee. In their underwear. Exactly.

And thanks to blogging social media, beginning that adventure is far less lonely and daunting a process than it used to be, THANK GOD.

Closely related, my regular Twitter buddy, Umair has a WONDERFUL little post over on the Harvard Business Review, “Create A Meanigful Life Through Meaningful Work” where he laments about how most “successful” people he meets seem to make a living these days. As usual, he pulls no punches– he suggests that maybe, just maybe our current depression is not an economic one, but a spiritual and psychological one.

I’ve been in Manhattan for the last few weeks. Hanging out in all the wrong places (read: painfully hip power hotels), I’ve had the questionable privilege of overhearing more than my fair share of Very Serious Conversations from the movers and shakers of the world.

And boy, have they been tedious: mostly, about eking out slightly sharper terms for deals for more yawn-inducing stuff (whether flicks, financial instruments, or kicks) that’s destined not to matter. So here’s a tiny hypothesis: maybe the real depression we’ve got to contend with isn’t merely one of how much economic output we’re generating — but what we’re putting out there, and why. Call it a depression of human potential, a tale of human significance being willfully squandered (on, for example, stuff like this).

Bravo, Umair! My thoughts exactly. Like the brilliant Guy Kawasaki once famously said, “Make Meaning”. That is where the action is, that is where the economy AND the future is going. For all of us, rich and poor.

Make of that what you will…