Archive for May, 2008

May 31, 2008

“fred 44″ update 2

fred44v3.jpg
[Click on image to enlarge etc.]
I’m gene­rally happy with how “Fred 44″ is coming along. It feels like it’s about 75% done, though one never knows. Like an artist friend once told me, “A pain­ting is never finished; it is ended.”
Right now I seem to be dra­wing a lot. Kinda fee­ling guilty because there’s a lot of other stuff going on, all to do with Social Objects and The Blue Mons­ter.
Peo­ple ask me a lot if I ever get bored/lonely/crazy out here in West Texas. To me it’s a funny ques­tion– I simply don’t have time to feel any of that. There’s far too much going on…

hymn to new york

hymn888.JPG
[Click on image to enlarge etc.]

note to douchebags

notetodb667.JPG
[Just so you know etc. Click on image to enlarge etc etc.]

“moleskine 42″ framed

moleskineframed123.JPG
[“Moles­kine 42″ in a nice woo­den frame. Click on image to enlarge etc.]
On May 4th I blog­ged about “Moles­kine 42″:

moleskine42vvv.JPG
[Over­view: Click on image to enlarge etc.]
moleskine42%20closupA.jpg
[Close-up view]

“Moles­kine 42″. A wee sketch I did over the wee­kend in my Moles­kine note­book. Approx 5x7 inches.

It was a sin­gle dra­wing in a brand new Moles­kine note­book. Which as you will see from the photo above, I went out and got moun­ted and fra­med.
This will look good on somebody’s wall. Yes, it is for sale. We’re tal­king in the $700 range.
[UPDATE:] Some­body made me an offer for the piece, and I accep­ted it. Rock on.

“think geek”

thefuturebelongs219.jpg
[Click on image to enlarge/download/print etc. Licen­sing terms here etc.]
[From Octo­ber, 2007:]

My defi­ni­tion of a geek is, “Some­body who socia­li­zes via objects.”
When you think about it, we’re all geeks. We’re all enthu­sias­tic about something outside our­sel­ves. For me, it’s mar­ke­ting and car­too­ning. For others, it could be cellpho­nes or Scotch Whisky or Apple com­pu­ters or NASCAR or the Bos­ton Red Sox or Bhud­dism. All these act as Social Objects within a social net­work of peo­ple who care pas­sio­na­tely about the stuff.
Wha­te­ver industry you are in, there’s some­body who is gee­ked out about your pro­duct cate­gory. They are using your pro­duct [or a competitor’s pro­duct] as a Social Object.
If you don’t unders­tand how the geeks are socia­li­zing– con­nec­ting to other peo­ple– via your pro­duct, then you don’t actually have a mar­ke­ting plan. Heck, you pro­bably don’t have a via­ble busi­ness plan.

It’s hard for me to think of mar­ke­ting, without thin­king in terms of Social Objects. It’s hard for me to think of mar­ke­ting, without thin­king how the geeks fit in the equa­tion.
So many peo­ple start out trying to mar­ket to Mr and Mrs Ave­rage. I think they’d have bet­ter luck if they thought of the geeks first.
“Think Geek.”
[Afterthought:] Someone in the com­ments asks, “Doesn’t the pro­duct also need to make sense to non-geeks?”
It would depend on the pro­duct, it would depend how “spe­cia­list” it is, I sup­pose. Can you show me an inte­res­ting, suc­cess­ful pro­duct that the geeks hate, but the non-geeks love?

May 29, 2008

grain of sand

sand112.jpg
[From my Twit­ter feed. There I go, chan­ne­ling Seth Godin again…]

May 28, 2008

adventures in twitterville

adventures2134A.jpg

May 27, 2008

“fred 44″ update

P5270001bbb.JPG
[Click on image to enlarge etc.]
Spent much of the day wor­king on “Fred 44″, an 18x24 inch, ink & pen­cil on paper.
Right now it’s mostly pen­cil, but there’s a bit of pen action going on. The lat­ter will inc­rease in the later sta­ges of the dra­wing.
I have a new Sec­ret Evil Plan as to what to with this dra­wing, once it’s done. Watch this space. Rock on. 

conversation

conversation777.jpg

twitter’s down again

down1287.jpg

better than you

better1236.jpg

May 23, 2008

word-of-mouth is not created

hugh_on_wom.png

“Word of mouth is not crea­ted, it is co-created. Peo­ple will only spread your virus if there’s something in it for them.” — Hugh MacLeod.

Something I said on Twit­ter recently. Thanks to John Moore of Brand Autopsy fame for pic­king it up. Rock on. 

May 22, 2008

web 2.0 specialist

web20specialist1.jpg

May 21, 2008

stormhoek tweetups

tweetup3456.jpg
[Click on image to enlarge/download etc. Feel free to use badge for your own needs etc.]
Two years ago, Stormhoek spon­so­red geek din­ners. They were a huge suc­cess.
We’re ready to get back at it.
This time, howe­ver, we’re going to spon­sor Twee­tups. If you’re one of the peo­ple follo­wing me on Twit­ter, are based in the USA and are plan­ning on having a Twee­tup in the next wee while, drop me an e-mail, and let’s see if we can’t get some wine sent there for the eve­ning. Rock on.
[For those of you outside the loop, a “Twee­tup” is a spon­ta­neous, self-organizing social gathe­ring of fellow Twit­ter users, usually orga­ni­zed on Twit­ter itself. Usually food and drink are part of the equa­tion etc.]

be passionate

bepassionate003.jpg
[Click on image to enlarge/download/print etc.]
This is a litho­graph idea I’m pla­ying around with for Stormhoek. The “Be Pas­sio­nate” line comes from the Stormhoek back label. Rock on. 

stormhoek back label

stormhoeklabel002.jpg
[Click on image to enlarge/download/print etc.]
Yep. I’m back wor­king with Stormhoek again. It’s got new owners, but so far, so good. The good news is, they don’t want me doing anything too dif­fe­rently from what I was doing already.
Now that I’m based in the US, I’m hoping to do a lot more geek din­ner stuff. And of course, the litho­graphs. Rock on.
The above car­toon a “Hugh” ver­sion of the Stormhoek back label. “The one with the back label on the front”. You can read the backs­tory here.

May 20, 2008

iphone 3g

iphone456.jpg
[Car­toon ins­pi­red by the latest phone news from Apple.]

May 19, 2008

red & grey 42

redngrey42.jpg
[I’m thin­king something like this would make a really good sig­ned, limited-edition litho­graph for the mains­tream art market…]

too many networks

toomanynetworks123.jpg

hyper-connected

hyperconnected123.jpg

“fred 44″: work in progress

fred44001.JPG
[Click on image to enlarge etc.]
Star­ted a new dra­wing this mor­ning, “Fred 44″. 18x24 inches. Right now it’s just pen­cil on paper, but I plan adding pen & ink to the mix later on. Watch this space etc.

the trick to new york, revisited

trick125.jpg

This is a re-working of a very old car­toon of mine, drawn back in my New York days, which also borrows hea­vily from another New York-era car­toon. Unlike its pre­de­ces­sors, it’s now avai­la­ble in high-resolution, so if you want, you can down­load it and print it out, or wha­te­ver. Rock on.

May 18, 2008

beer will break your heart

beerwill08.jpg
[A little piece of graf­fiti, done on a pic­nic table of my local bar etc.]

free cartoons as “social objects”

zzzzsteak20A.jpg
When I first star­ted put­ting up car­toons onto gaping­void in 2001, they were in a small, 400-pixel-wide for­mat, just like the “Love Let­ter” car­toon you see above.
Then about 2 years ago, I star­ted pos­ting them in high-resolution, like the “Dino­saur” car­toon below [Click on the image and the high-res ver­sion will pop up].
dinosaur001A.jpg
This meant peo­ple could actually down­load the ima­ges and start using them for their own stuff. Like I said in my licen­sing terms,

Hey, if you want to put the work up on your web­site, blog, or stick it on paper, t-shirts, busi­ness cards, stic­kers, home­made gree­ting cards, Power­point sli­des, or wha­te­ver, as far as I’m con­cer­ned, as long as it’s just for your own per­so­nal use, as long as you’re not trying to make money off it directly, and you’re giving me due attri­bu­tion, I’m totally cool with the idea.

As a “Social Object”, a car­toon that one can actually print out and hang on their cube wall, or put on a t-shirt, a busi­ness card etc is far more power­ful and use­ful than say, YET ONE MORE IMAGE you can find on the inter­net and e-mail en masse to your friends.
i.e. The car­toon itself hasn’t chan­ged, but the inte­rac­tion bet­ween it and the “End User” is sud­denly far more mea­ning­ful.
So of course, the next layman’s ques­tion is, “Yes, but… how do you mone­tize it?”
And of course, the ans­wer is, “Indi­rectly”.
For exam­ple, in Octo­ber, 2006 I post the Mic­ro­soft Blue Mons­ter car­toon. Within a few months Mic­ro­soft is somehow paying me a lot of money to do other dra­wings for them. Without the for­mer, the lat­ter would never have hap­pe­ned. And without the lat­ter, Sun Mic­rosys­tems would never have approached me. Everything feeds into everything else. Exactly.
In other words, I don’t create the online car­toons as “pro­ducts” to be sold. I create the car­toons as “Social Objects”, i.e. “Sha­ring Devi­ces” that help me to build rela­tionships with.
As with all things, the REAL value comes from the human rela­tionships that are built AROUND the social object, not the object in itself.

I’ll quote my friend, Mark Earls one more time. This is from his second book, “Herd”:

“Cova is surely right to sug­gest that much of modern con­su­mer beha­viour is social in nature. We do it not just in a social con­text (tan­gi­ble and imme­dia­tely pre­sent or over dis­tan­ces) but for social rea­sons — that is the object or acti­vity is the means for a group or tribe to form or inte­ract. This also echoes a lot of what Dou­glas Atkin desc­ri­bes in his study of cult brands — brands which have deve­lo­ped a cult sta­tus (like Apple, and Ford’s bes­tse­lling pic­kup) seem to serve an underl­ying social need within each indi­vi­dual (just as reli­gious cults do): a need to belong. The real draw is pro­bably not the brand but… other people.”

And I’ll also ask my favo­rite ques­tion, one more time: If your pro­duct is not a “Social Object”, how on earth do you manage to stay in business?

May 17, 2008

the numbness

numbness48.jpg
[UPDATE:] Thanks to Microsoft’s Steve Clay­ton for put­ting this little gaping­void car­toon sli­deshow together. It was done using Popfly, and can be embed­ded on any web­page. Rock on.

purple dog

blue48.jpg

blue 47

blue47.jpg

blue monster 2.0

bluemonster2.jpg
[Click on image to enlarge/download/print etc.]
For those of you who don’t work at Mic­ro­soft, I pla­yed around with this new “Blue Mons­ter 2.0″ logo. Feel free to print it out or wha­te­ver. Rock on.
bluemonster3.jpg
[P.S. Click on image to get the white back­ground ver­sion etc.]

corporate calcification

cc1324.jpg

before

before.gif

4d

4d444444.gif

big tits

bigtits47.jpg

rose 47

rose47.jpg

sexsexsex

sexsexsex124.jpg

when

when5376.jpg

May 16, 2008

the cultural problem

changethesystem117AA.jpg
So some­body was asking me the other day, “What’s the deal with these large tech com­pa­nies? As soon as they get to a cer­tain age and/or size, they all seem to go into ‘cri­sis’ mode…”
My reply was, well, when you think about it, these large com­pa­nies are in most ways very for­tu­nate. They have lots of money, lots of smart peo­ple wor­king for them, lots of com­bi­ned know­ledge, and lots of mate­rial capi­tal to build other stuff with.
i.e. The have lots of capi­tal– human, finan­cial, inte­llec­tual, tech­ni­cal etc etc.
But they will also have a lot of bag­gage. Lots and lots of dif­fe­rent entrenched posi­tions to defend. Thou­sands of them.
So they way I see it, their pro­blem isn’t “mate­rial”. Their pro­blem is CULTURAL.

It’s not the sum of their parts that is the pro­blem; it’s the way human beings relate with each other, inte­ract with each other, that is cau­sing the pro­blem.

i.e. Often with tech com­pa­nies, we wrongly blame the pro­blems on the tech itself. As with all things com­mer­cial, it’s the peo­ple that mat­ter.
[UPDATE:] One of my favo­rite mar­ke­ting wri­ters, my friend, Mark Earls left a com­ment below:

Great post, mate. And spot on.
I find it stri­king that all the dif­fe­rent kinds of mana­gers I meet in all kinds of dif­fe­rent sec­tors still pre­fer to desc­ribe and draw their busi­nes­ses as if they were a machine or some tech­ni­cal thing at least; how they pre­fer tech­ni­cal soun­ding stra­te­gies and defi­ni­tions of their cha­llen­ges (“the busi­ness plan­ning pro­cess” etc) to the honest accep­tance that the rea­son why all busi­nes­ses are tricky beasts is that they’re built on, with and by humans.
Of course, it’d be easier if busi­nes­ses were more like machi­nes but they’re not. And if stra­te­gies were like mecha­ni­cal (i.e. human-lite) things — borne of a robo-mind and imple­men­ted by an army of repli­cants, maybe.
The sad truth remains that everything in busi­ness is about peo­ple, their inte­rac­tions with each other and the ideas and assump­tions that shape those inte­rac­tions.
I’m not sure it’s just the tech busi­ness that suf­fer this way: finance, manu­fac­tu­ring, air­li­nes and — god bless, em — govern­ment agen­cies are just as delu­sio­nal about this stuff.
Go get ‘em!

May 12, 2008

mark earls and the “purpose-idea”

headup337.jpg
When I’m tal­king with clients about mar­ke­ting, it’s very hard for me to go more than a few minu­tes without men­tio­ning the term, “Purpose-Idea”.
The “P.I.” is not a term I coi­ned myself. That cre­dit goes to my friend, mar­ke­ting hero and fre­quent pod­cast part­ner, Mark Earls. He wrote about the P.I. in his semi­nal mar­ke­ting book, “Wel­come To The Crea­tive Age”.
Marks begins his the­sis by saying that actually, when you think about it, tal­king about “The Brand” is pretty mea­nin­gless. Ima­gine lots of mee­tings cram­med full of suits yak­king on about “Core Brand Values”, “Living The Brand” and all that mar­ke­ting waf­fle, and you kinda get the idea. I’ve been in those mee­tings and they suck.
What’s far more inte­res­ting, Mark says, is the rea­son we all get out of bed in the mor­ning. The thing that dri­ves us as indi­vi­duals, as a com­pany. Ask your­self, what is our com­pany for? Is all our pro­fes­sio­nal life about just selling alu­mi­num wid­gets for 16.7% mar­gin, or is there some sort of higher mea­ning invol­ved? What are we trying to change? To improve upon? To dis­rupt?
Why are we here?
Mark then goes on to say how much more fun, inte­res­ting and pro­fi­ta­ble it is for a com­pany when what it does has a sense of sha­red pur­pose, an idea it can believe in. This is the “P.I.”
The Blue Mons­ter i.e. “Change The World Or Go Home” is a P.I., the Mic­ro­soft tagline, “Your Poten­tial, Our Pas­sion” is not.
Why not? Because that’s not how peo­ple talk in real life. Sure, the word, “pas­sion” may be in the line, but it burns with about as much pas­sion as a wet Klee­nex. Which is why it comes off being con­tri­ved and phony at worse, boring and unins­pi­red at best.
I’m not trying to go after Mic­ro­soft, here. They’re still bud­dies of mine, I con­ti­nue to like, admire and res­pect them. But there’s so much real, genuine pas­sion under the hood of that car, I just WISH they could do a bet­ter job of let­ting the rest of us see it more often. I find their tagline a sorely mis­sed oppor­tu­nity.
I would guess that the chea­pest and easiest way to bet­ter arti­cu­late this pas­sion, My Friends in Red­mond, is to spend more time thin­king about what your Purpose-Idea ACTUALLY IS, as oppo­sed to what you think peo­ple outside the com­pany might want to hear. I’d recom­mend any Mic­ro­soft emplo­yee who knows me, to go read Mark’s book. Rock on.
[Disc­lo­sure: I con­si­der myself a friend of Mic­ro­soft. They’ve been clients of mine in the past, they’ll hope­fully be clients of mine in the future, they are not not clients of mine at the moment. It’s all good.]

hugh & the rabbi, episode 4

0711untitled446.jpg

Rabbi Pinny, John­nie, Euan Sem­ple and myself recor­ded a new pod­cast a cou­ple of weeks ago. John­nie wrote the show notes and ori­gi­nally pos­ted them over on his blog. It was a lot of fun.
Down­load the Pod­cast
Pod­cast RSS feed for Hugh and the Rabbi pod­casts

SHOW NOTES:

0.00 Intros, Hugh for­gets who “the Scot­tish guy is” and isn’t sure what Euan does but sett­les for rock star.
1.00 Hugh sets up the idea of love, reca­lling a talk about this by Euan at Reboot.
1.45 Euan talks about the L word, and people’s reac­tions to it. It’s about people’s basic desire to con­nect to each other, caring about things, get­ting pas­sio­nate about things. So much of the busi­ness world sani­ti­ses pas­sion out of things.
3.15 Pinny won­ders about how com­pa­nies show love. Refe­ren­ces Love­marks. In rela­tionships, if you don’t go to the nth degree, everything else doesn’t count. Talks about how mis­ta­kes by Face­book and Apple get poun­ced on by the blo­gosphere.
4.40 Love­marks pro­ves a red rag to Johnnie’s bull. Love means dif­fe­rent things to dif­fe­rent peo­ple. John­nie wary of the fana­ti­cal idea of love, the pur­suit of per­fec­tion. It’s more about being human, falli­ble.
5.50 Euan chi­mes in against fixa­tion on the roman­tic idea of love. Ins­tead favours “the pas­sion that grows out of day-to-day stuff”.
6.45 Hugh asks Euan about his World Ser­vice expe­rience at the BBC.
7.30 Euan: Roughly 47 dif­fe­rent lan­guage ser­vi­ces in the same buil­ding. Lots of cha­rac­ters, dif­fe­rent cul­tu­res. “If you were clim­bing lad­ders, they were all against dif­fe­rent walls.” — so less ego and tri­ba­lism than in the rest of the BBC. You had to get on quickly with peo­ple, the abi­lity to engage and con­nect, and move ideas round the buil­ding was a for­ma­tive expe­rience.
9.00 Pro­duct of World Ser­vice is ideas but also the kind of inti­macy you can create on radio.
9.50 Hugh talks about the pur­pose idea — what are we here for, why are we doing this. Trying to get a sense of pur­pose going.
10.30 Euan: pur­pose is good, so is obli­que­ness. Says what he likes about pod­casts is that they are not like broad­casts. Mean­de­ring semi-conversations that get under skin in a dif­fe­rent way than stuff pro­jec­ted at you in broad­casts. Con­ven­tio­nal radio out­put sounds inc­rea­singly patro­ni­sing.
12.20 Euan on how he pays each month to sup­port Leo Laporte’s pod­casts, more than half he pays in the BBC licence fee. “That’s me doing that to an indi­vi­dual because I really don’t want him to stop pod­cas­ting.” Peo­ple will pay for stuff that’s pas­sio­nate and acces­si­ble.
13.00 Hugh con­trasts Euan’s story with a UK show, News­night Review and its affi­lia­tion with the Not­ting Hill cul­tu­ral elite. New media is a threat, not so much to cash as to old media pri­vi­lege.
14.30 Euan recalls David Wein­ber­ger saying con­ver­sa­tions can only take place bet­ween equals.
15.00 Hugh on fan­boys.
15.20 Hugh asks Pinny a ques­tion “as the only guy here with a real job”: does this pod­cast affect your busi­ness.
16.10 Pinny: it’s not affec­ting the busi­ness… what it affec­ted is how peo­ple view him. Dis­cus­ses impact on his emplo­yees with Hugh.
18.45 Hugh on pod­casts as dis­rup­tors. Euan says dis­rup­tion is a word with all sorts of bag­gage but we get invol­ved in this stuff because it makes a dif­fe­rence. How can gover­nance cope with these chan­ges? It’s going to change power dyna­mics and who is suc­cess­ful and why.
21.10 Pinny returns to the theme of love, ins­pi­red by his nephew’s wed­ding where a Rabbi tal­ked about what hap­pens when you aren’t in love with love, but with the other. Com­pa­nies need to own up to mis­ta­kes.
23.00 Hugh: gosh, act like a human being, not a robot. John­nie: inti­macy an impor­tant word in Euan’s story. There’s something about “ordi­nary small­ness”, the abi­lity to have a real con­ver­sa­tion; how mee­tings that strive to be effec­tive often fail. The need to feel each other as human beings.
24.30 Hugh on how small town, West Texas expe­rience has affec­ted him. How it’s safe to have a guy wal­king round with a ten inch knife, because ever­yone knows who he is and what the knife is for. Euan remi­nis­ces about Glas­gow and Pinny, Israel.
27.20 Euan: the dan­ger of homo­ge­ni­sa­tion of suc­cess. Quote Doc Searls about things being valua­ble without being impor­tant.
28.00 John­nie on spen­ding Sun­day mor­ning with the papers and someone else, where you don’t talk but there’s a fee­ling of com­pa­nionship. You can’t put that on a spreadsheet.
29.15 John­nie on a twitter-related expe­rience of fin­ding work in a very acci­den­tal way. If fell out of a con­ver­sa­tion where he wasn’t trying to make something hap­pen.
30.30 Pinny: the unplan­ned as the eureka moments of our lives. Get­ting beyond ego.
32.10 Pinny on the online course Oprah is doing with Eckhart Tolle. This is why the web was crea­ted: to spread good­will.
33.00 Hugh: a lot of peo­ple are trying to use the web to do busi­ness the way it’s usually been done, which mis­ses the point.
34.00 Euan won­ders about how these chan­ges con­nect to our spi­ri­tua­lity. Hugh recalls a Catho­lic priest who influen­ced him. God as a metaphor rather than a bear­ded sky fairy.
35.40 Pinny the web is teaching reli­gion to say it’s about human beings, not about God. It’s teaching com­pa­nies it’s about what the cus­to­mer wants to pull, not what the com­pany wants to push. Strip away the disease of entit­le­ment and learn humi­lity. Con­nects to the rise of Barack Obama.
37.20 John­nie on the dif­fe­rence bet­ween Clin­ton and Obama. Clinton’s posi­tio­ning as the lea­der, Obama’s empha­sis on us.
38.20 Euan: autho­rity used to mean autho­rity as con­fe­rred; now it means having a com­pe­lling argu­ment or idea.
39.00 John­nie on autho­rity as being the authors of our own expe­rience. You don’t take autho­rity from the BBC any more, you par­ti­ci­pate.
40.00 Hugh wraps by asking what advice we’d give cor­po­rate man in light of all this. Euan: be brave. Pinny: don’t be stu­pid (“Be brave but have a day job”) Empty your mid once a day for oppor­tu­nity to hap­pen. Hugh: be com­pas­sio­nate to those above you. John­nie: you already know what to do.
44.35 Ends

May 10, 2008

“fred 43″: work in progress– day one

P5100001A.JPG
[Click on image to enlarge etc.]
Like they say, when you fall off your horse, the first thing to do is get right back on it.
After Fred 42 died ear­lier today, I got right back to work. Behold “Fred 43″. Ink & pen­cil on paper. 23 x 30 inches. It’s been a busy mor­ning, to say the least.
I’m already liking this one. We’ll see where it goes…
By the way, to ans­wer a frequently-asked ques­tion. I con­si­der these large pie­ces “car­toons”, I do not con­si­der them “fine art”. I con­si­der myself a car­too­nist, not an “artist”.
So there!

r.i.p “fred 42″

P5100001.JPG
I’m sad to report the pre­ma­ture death of my good friend, “Fred 42″.
This hap­pe­ned ear­lier today, when my pen explo­ded.
It hap­pens.
All is not lost. I already have a New Evil Plan. Hurrah! I’ll let you see it when it’s ready.
I spent about twenty minu­tes being really bum­med, then said, “To Hell with it. “Fred 43″ will be EVEN BETTER.”
It’s all good…

May 9, 2008

cut the art crap

cuttheartcrap123.jpg
[Click on image to enlarge etc.]
Cran­ked out this one quickly today. “Cut The Art Crap”, May, 2008. 24x24 inches, pen­cil on woo­den Amper­sand Ges­so­bord, var­nished with spray acry­lic. I might sell this one… thin­king it would go well in somebody’s New York apart­ment. We’ll see what hap­pens etc.

“fred 42″: work in progress– day six

P509000111cu.JPG
[Close-up of “Fred 42″. Click on image to enlarge etc.]
Yes­ter­day [Day Five] I hardly touched Fred 42. Maybe ten minu­tes, tops. My brain was all wrap­ped up with all the Blue Mons­ter stuff.
Like I told some­body the other day, if I just tried to be a full-time car­too­nist, I would fail. If I just tried to be a full-time mar­ke­ter, I would fail.
Somehow it’s mana­ging to balance BOTH sphe­res that keeps it inte­res­ting for me… and ipso facto, inte­res­ting for the peo­ple that pay my bills. And all this, of course, feeds back into The Sex & Cash Theory, from Chap­ter Seven of “How To Be Crea­tive”:

“The crea­tive per­son basi­cally has two kinds of jobs: One is the sexy, crea­tive kind. Second is the kind that pays the bills. Some­ti­mes the task in hand covers both bases, but not often. This tense dua­lity will always play cen­ter stage. It will never be transcended.”

Today I don’t want to think about mar­ke­ting. I’m just going to draw…

May 8, 2008

“the blue monster is the future of marketing”

BlueMonster350px.jpg
I haven’t tal­ked about The Blue Mons­ter for a while.
The Blue Mons­ter, as you will remem­ber, is a cartoon-based “Social Object” that me and my Mic­ro­soft buddy, Steve Clay­ton, unleashed on the good but unsus­pec­ting folk at Mic­ro­soft. For those unfa­mi­liar with it, you can find the backs­tory here on Goo­gle.
One of the rea­sons I haven’t tal­ked about it much lately, is simply because there is no lon­ger the need. To paraph­rase Steve, “It’s already out there, it’s already wor­king its magic. It has a life of its own and it no lon­ger needs us.”
Exactly. And as my friend, Tara Hunt so rightly poin­ted out, to push it too hard, espe­cially with Mic­ro­soft mana­ge­ment giving it a big thumbs-up, would somehow defeat the pur­pose. If ove­ru­sed, “Sub­ver­sion as a mar­ke­ting tool” can be coun­ter­pro­duc­tive, espe­cially if it comes from above.
In 2007, the con­ver­sa­tion was all about “THE” Blue Mons­ter. But in 2008, a new con­ver­sa­tion seems to be emer­ging: “A” Blue Mons­ter.
Let me explain:
I’ve been tal­king to some com­pa­nies recently, tal­king about doing some new busi­ness with them. Without any doubt, the ques­tion I get asked the most is, “Can you make a Blue Mons­ter for us?”
Obviously, when they’re tal­king about “A” Blue Mons­ter, they’re not tal­king about a wee blue car­toon cha­rac­ter with pointy horns, that hails from Red­mond, Washing­ton.
What they’re tal­king about, of course, is a “Social Object”, not neces­sa­rily a car­toon, desig­ned to create what I loo­sely desc­ribe as “Mar­ke­ting Dis­rup­tion”.
It’s not unlike when you’re tal­king about Seth Godin. When you say, “THE” Pur­ple Cow, you’re tal­king about his won­der­ful and semi­nal mar­ke­ting book from a few years ago. But when you talk about “A” Pur­ple Cow, you’re just tal­king a about a pro­duct, any pro­duct, which from a mar­ke­ting stand­point has been desig­ned so well, it does not need any tra­di­tio­nal mar­ke­ting per se. It’s so “remar­ka­ble” for what it is, peo­ple can’t help but talk about it. And so the word spreads, almost by magic. Seth actually gives a really good exam­ple of exactly that here.
So what’s the dif­fe­rence bet­ween a Pur­ple Cow and a Blue Mons­ter? Well, we could split hairs on that one fore­ver, but for me, the main dif­fe­rence is Pur­ple Cows have their “remar­ka­bi­lity” baked into the pro­duct. Blue Mons­ters are more about the “Social”, the inte­res­ting bit is the inte­rac­tions that hap­pen AROUND the pro­duct. That’s what gave our little wine com­pany the edge when mar­ke­ting Stormhoek. The VAST majo­rity of our con­ver­sa­tion was not about the wine in the bottle. The con­ver­sa­tion WAS ALL ABOUT the peo­ple drin­king it. As we were fond of saying, “Wine is the ulti­mate social object. It’s only inte­res­ting AFTER the cork is pulled.”
So in conc­lu­sion, yes, something has recently evol­ved in my thin­king. Though my rela­tionship with Mic­ro­soft remains as strong as ever, “Blue Mons­ter” now means something far big­ger to me than just car­toons, gaping­void, Mic­ro­soft, Red­mond etc. The Blue Mons­ter is all about the Social Object.
I have often said, I believe Social Objects are the future of mar­ke­ting.
Let me modify that slightly: I believe the Blue Mons­ter is the future of mar­ke­ting.
[UPDATE:] Steve Clay­ton sent me the follo­wing mes­sage on Twit­ter:
steveclatwit125.jpg
I replied back:
stevecla126.jpg
[Afterthought:] Unders­tan­ding the Blue Mons­ter means unders­tan­ding the need to be “big­ger than your­self”. Exactly.

May 7, 2008

“fred 42″: work in progress– day four

P508000111.JPG
[“Fred 42″. Click on image to enlarge etc.]
F42CU002.JPG
[Close-up shot.]
Yes­ter­day I wrote, “When I do large pie­ces, I rarely do the long, 18-hour obses­sive stints that so many artists are known for. I pre­fer to whittle away at it in brief spurts over time– a little bit there, a little bit there, that kind of thing.”
Hmmm… That does not explain the 8 – 10 hours I put into the dra­wing yes­ter­day. What the hell, I guess I was on a roll.
In the last decade or so, I always had a job to hold down, or a busi­ness to run. I always had a thou­sand dif­fe­rent things to do BESIDES making dra­wings. My dra­wing time was always “sto­len” from the other stuff going on.
But now here in uber-laid-back West Texas, sud­denly I have more time on my hands.
Or so it felt, yesterday.

“fred 42″: work in progress– day three

P5070002.JPG
[Click on image to enlarge etc.]
Yes­ter­day (Day 2) I hardly touched the dra­wing. I was busy doing other things.
Today I foo­led around with it for a cou­ple of hours in the mor­ning. Quite plea­sed with the results, so far.
When I do large pie­ces, I rarely do the long, 18-hour obses­sive stints that so many artists are known for. I pre­fer to whittle away at it in brief spurts over time– a little bit there, a little bit there, that kind of thing.
I’m gues­sing “Fred 42″ will be done by month’s end, if all goes well. Rock on.

May 5, 2008

“fred 42″: work in progress– day one

WIP001.jpg
[Click on image to enlarge etc.]
WIP001CU.JPG
[Close-up: Click on image to enlarge etc.]
Today, once I had finished with work for the day, I deci­ded to start on a a new dra­wing. 18 x 24 inches. Pen­cil and pen & ink on paper. Wor­king Title: “Fred 42″ [I’ll explain the title at a later date].
So far I’m having a blast. We’ll see where this all takes me. I have no idea how long it’ll take me to com­plete, but I’ll let you know when it hap­pens. Rock on. 

ian murdock: sun keynote

ianmvideo002.jpg
[UPDATE: You can watch the video here– See Chap­ter One.]
murdock001.jpeg
[UPDATE: You can see pho­tos from the event here.]
murdock002.jpeg
[More pho­tos here.]
sunlogo001.jpg
[Click on ima­ges to enlarge etc.]
sunlogo002.jpg
sunlogo003.jpg
sunlogo004.jpg
sunlogo005.jpg
sunlogo006.jpg
Last week I was in Aus­tin. One of the rea­sons I was there was to help design some sli­des for Ian Murdock’s key­note, “Inno­vate. Colla­bo­rate. Inte­grate”, which he gave today.
Above are the sli­des. They start off as a giant, black, haystack-shaped soft­ware mono­lith, then evol­ved out­wards into “Open Source”, and finally, to the Sun logo. The sixth car­toon is just a humo­rous dra­wing pro­jec­ted behind the other panel mem­bers who were sha­ring the stage with Ian.
I’m told the screen was fifty feet wide, so I’m gue­sing they would’ve loo­ked rather spiffy. These were all drawn in pen­cil on 3.5-inch card [Business-card size, obviously]. The actual dra­wings didn’t take that long to exe­cute; though get­ting them to work cohe­si­vely and con­cep­tually took a long time, a lot of colla­bo­ra­tion was invol­ved.
It was a cool gig; I hope to do more like it. Thanks to the very groovy Sarah Dorn­sife for making it hap­pen. Rock on.

May 4, 2008

moleskine 43

moleskine43.jpg
[Another one from the note­book. 5x7 inches approx.]

moleskine 42

moleskine42vvv.JPG
[Over­view: Click on image to enlarge etc.]
moleskine42%20closupA.jpg
[Close-up view]

“Moles­kine 42″. A wee sketch I did over the wee­kend in my Moles­kine note­book. Approx 5x7 inches.

moleskine 41

moleskine41.JPG