Home

May 30, 2009

cube grenades: the pitch to ad agencies

2 Comments

[Sig­ning the agen­ciac­lick cube gre­nade a cou­ple of weeks ago…]
Over the last cou­ple of weeks I’ve been tal­king with various adver­ti­sing and PR folk about the Cube Gre­nade idea. Here are some notes:
1. In terms of the adver­ti­sing and PR indus­tries, the Cube Gre­nade is basi­cally con­cei­ved as a rela­ti­vely cheap and effec­tive Social Object to arti­cu­late the Purpose-Idea of a brand or com­pany.
2. If the agency has an idea they REALLY want to sell to their client, they might have bet­ter luck if they first arti­cu­late the idea via a Cube Gre­nade desig­ned by me, rather than the tra­di­tio­nal “agency pitch” model. The agency’s idea is somehow arti­cu­la­ted as a com­mis­sio­ned print, the print is given out as a gift, to peo­ple within the rele­vant cons­ti­tuency. The print hangs on a wall, other peo­ple see it, and if the idea is any good then peo­ple will start tal­king about it. That con­ver­sa­tion will lead to other con­ver­sa­tions. If the idea is any good, other ideas [and oppor­tu­ni­ties] will be spaw­ned from it.
3. The Cube Gre­nade is not a glo­ri­fied adver­ti­sing pos­ter. I’m not pri­ma­rily inte­res­ted in why peo­ple should buy the client’s pro­duct per se. I’m far more inte­res­ted in the human dyna­mic, the collec­tive human drive that makes the client’s peo­ple want to get up in the mor­ning and go to work. That is where THE REAL VALUE is crea­ted.
4. Because the Cube Gre­nade is given as a gift– an act of love, as it were– AND NOT A DELIVERABLE WANTING TO BE SOLD, it will break through the cul­tu­ral barriers of the client com­pany a lot more cheaply and quickly than your stan­dard “Big Adver­ti­sing Idea”. The game here is not about “Selling An Ad”, the point is to make the client more alive, more human, more aware of their own human poten­tial. Again, this is where is where THE REAL VALUE for the client-agency rela­tionship is crea­ted.
5. Whether the Cube Gre­nade “works” or not in the end, both agency and client will find out if the thought behind it works A LOT soo­ner and inex­pen­si­vely than exe­cu­ting your ave­rage ad cam­paign. Like all com­mu­ni­ca­tion, the idea needs to RISK FAILURE if it’s ever to be any good. “Fail cheap, fail often”, as the great ven­ture capi­ta­list, Esther Dyson likes to say.
6. As I’ve said before to the ad agen­cies: “Guys, you are NOT selling mes­sa­ges any­more. You are selling Social Objects. The work that you create will affect the Cube Gre­na­des and Social Objects, that your clients and their cus­to­mers use to inte­ract with each other.” This is why I’m tal­king to adver­ti­sing folk. At the end of the day, we’re both in the same busi­ness.
7. To get more back­ground rea­ding, please visit my Cube Gre­nade archive here. You might also want to check out “The Hugh­train” to get a bet­ter unders­tan­ding of where my ideas are coming from.
8. As always, if this idea is of any inte­rest to you, please feel free to con­tact me at gapingvoid@gmail.com. Or if you know someone in the adver­ti­sing industry, please send them along to this page [Here’s the link]. Thanks!

twenty five years

9 Comments

As y’all will already know, June 11th is the date my book, IGNORE EVERYBODY comes out.
It just occu­rred to me, that date ALSO marks the TWENTY FIFTH anni­ver­sary of me star­ting my first real job– a trai­nee bar­ten­der at Whigham’s Wine Bar, Edin­burgh- June 11th, 1984– right after I had finished my final high school exams.
Since then, of course, I’ve had PLENTY of adven­tu­res. Atten­ding Uni­ver­sity in Texas, wor­king offshore in the Gulf of Mexico, wor­king in adver­ti­sing, wor­king in TV (briefly), star­ting a gree­ting card com­pany, dra­wing car­toons, get­ting invol­ved with blogs and blog mar­ke­ting, con­sul­ting, making and selling prints, wri­ting a book. A real roller coas­ter, to say the least.
Twenty five years seems a long time get from where I was then, to where I am now. Had I had my act more together, had I been a bit luc­kier, had my per­so­na­lity been more sui­ted to some of the paths that I chose for myself, it pro­bably would’ve taken me half the time. I’ve had my fair share of disap­point­ment & disas­ter along the way, that’s for cer­tain.
But part of me also knows that, had it gone more smoothly, more quickly, I pro­bably wouldn’t have ended up somewhere NEARLY as inte­res­ting.
Every­body pays full price for being who they are. Only the inte­rest rate fluctuates.

May 27, 2009

stupid [blue]

8 Comments

[A “Cube Gre­nade” based on an old car­toon from The Hugh­train etc.]

May 25, 2009

‘cube grenades’: using my cartoons to help your business kick ass

24 Comments

I’m currently accep­ting new pri­vate and cor­po­rate com­mis­sions a.k.a. “Cube Gre­na­des”. Please read on for some selec­ted case stu­dies, or for more back­ground theory, read the com­mis­sion archi­ves.  Thanks!gapingvoid@gmail.com.

Tra­di­tio­nal adver­ti­sing doesn’t work very well.

Sure, it tries, and tries hard, but most of the time, it fails.

It fails far worse now than it ever did during the gol­den era of TV or print. Those days are gone. We live in The Inter­net Era now.

Old, tra­di­tio­nal adver­ti­sing was all about crea­ting mes­sa­ges for the media, not about crea­ting social objects for the peo­ple using the media.

“Social Objects” is what makes the Inter­net work, what makes the Inter­net possible.

Without the social objects, there would simply be no World Wide Web.

Social objects are part of the Web’s very DNA.

In The Inter­net Era, an ad that isn’t first and fore­most a social object, is use­less waste of money. Even if we’re not tal­king about the Inter­net, per se.

Which is why I inven­ted Cube Gre­na­des: social objects in car­toon form, desig­ned to star real con­ver­sa­tions bet­ween people.

To me, Cube Gre­na­des aren’t just about car­toons. Cube Gre­na­des are  about something far more impor­tant– they’re about doing something that crea­tes real change bet­ween peo­ple, that crea­tes something that actually mat­ters to people.

Social Objects: I use car­toons. What do you use? Serious question.

1. SHIT CREEK CONSULTING

The groovy cats over at Shit Creek Con sul ting com mis sio ned me to design them their busi­ness card.  After loo king at the half-dozen or so ideas I pre sen ted to them, they chose the one above.

Shit Creek are a Mic ro soft Gold Part ner. It seems a big part of their busi ness is coming in and clea ning up the mess left behind by the large tech con sul tan cies [I’m not naming any names]. So that’s the idea I ran with.

The name of their com pany implies they have a lot of atti tude. They wan ted a car toon that con ve yed this. Easy. It was a fan tas tic com mis sion and I’m very happy with the car toon they chose.

[The com­mis­sion archive is here…]

2. TECHCRUNCH

For the last five years I’ve desig­ned the pos­ter for the annual Techc­runch Party. This is the one I did for July, 2010.

[The com­mis­sion archive is here…]

3. THOUGHTWORKS

A “cube gre­nade” com­mis­sion I just com­ple­ted for Thought­works, the glo­bal IT con­sul­ting company.

Thought­works has this term, “Water­me­lon”, to desc­ribe a pro­ject that goes terribly wrong, that looks all well and good on the outside (green), but as the pro­ject comes to an end, turns out to be a huge ol’ expen­sive mess on the inside (red). I just took the idea and ran with it.

We’re going to turn this design into a 100 large fra­med prints, as Christ­mas pre­sents for their clients. A fun little “con­ver­sa­tion star­ter” to hang on their walls… which of course, is what the the whole cube gre­nade idea is all about. “Art With Pur­pose” etc.

Fun!

4. INTEL

“The pro­ces­sor is an expres­sion of human poten­tial”. Exactly.

“Sili­con chip as metaphor for blank can­vas.” Exactly.

So this was my idea for my client, Intel. You know, the big mic­ro­pro­ces­sor com­pany. “Sili­con Chips” etc.

First I drew a wee doodle of a mic­ro­pro­ces­sor, like the one above.

Then I added a tagline to the image. “The pro­ces­sor is an expres­sion of human potential”.

This was my “blank can­vas” to start with, as it were.

And then I star­ted to fill said blank can­vas with ima­ges. As demons­tra­ted below:

The ima­ges them­sel­ves don’t mat­ter per se. The fact they were drawn by me doesn’t mat­ter, either. That’s not the point.

The point is, as always, human poten­tial. And what Intel can do to help said human poten­tial reveal itself.

“The pro­ces­sor is an expres­sion of human poten­tial”. Exactly.

“Sili­con chip as metaphor for blank can­vas.” Exactly.

Then I added the Intel logo and their tagline, “Visibly Smart”.

We prin­ted these up as fine art prints. Then I hand-signed them at the Intel stand at the 2001 CES (Con­su­mer Elec­tro­nics Show) in Las Vegas. You can seethe pho­tos here on Flickr.

[The com­mis­sion archive is here…]

5. ORGPRENEUR.COM

[“Sac­red Zom­bie Cow”. Click here to down­load free high-rez down­load etc.]

Thanks to David Gam­mel of Orgpreneur.com for the great com­mis­sion. Backs­tory here.

A “Sac­red Zom­bie Cow” is David’s term for an idea that still lives within an orga­ni­za­tion, that has long out­li­ved its usefulness.

[The com­mis­sion archive is here…]

 

6. PRIVATE COMMISSION– TARA AND REMI

Recently I com­ple­ted one of my most ambi­tious pie­ces in a while– a pri­vate com­mis­sion from Tara, for her boy­friend, Remi’s birthday.

Go here to check out all the pho­tos and the com­plete backstory.

[Though I haven’t tal­ked about it too much on the blog, yes, I do pri­vate com­mis­sions. Feel free to con­tact me at gapingvoid@gmail.com if you want to dis­cuss further, Thanks.]

[The com­mis­sion archive is here…]

7. PURINA

February, 2010 I flew to St. Louis, to give a talk at Purina, the giant pet food com­pany that’s owned by Nestle. It was their big, annual digi­tal sum­mit. All their top digi­tal mar­ke­ting folk (and their top ad agency digi­tal folk) were there.

I tal­ked about “Social Objects”, and how I believe they are the future of mar­ke­ting.

Above is the print they com­mis­sio­ned me to draw for them. I like how it tur­ned out. “All pro­ducts are infor­ma­tion” refers back to something I wrote a few years ago, “The Kine­tic Quality”.

How often do large, well-known com­pa­nies call you up and ask you to draw a car­toon for them? Exactly. I’ve wor­ked in the tech world for big clients before– Sun, Dell, Mic­ro­soft etc– but this is my first­com­mis­sion with a large, FMCG brand (Fast-Moving Con­su­mer Goods). Not to men­tion, I’ve always held Nestle and Purina in very high regard. So natu­rally, I was pretty exci­ted. Rock on.

[The com­mis­sion archive is here…]

8. FIZZ

I did this cube gre­nade for Fizz, the well-known Word-Of-Mouth mar­ke­ting agency [They did all that ground-breaking stuff for Pabst Blue Rib­bon etc.].

This idea is so sim­ple… do I really have to explain it? Exactly.

[The com­mis­sion archive is here…]

9. RACKSPACE

These are three from an ongoing series of cube gre­na­des I was com­mis­sio­ned to do for Racks­pace, the large hos­ting com­pany in San Anto­nio. I was hired by Rob La Gesse [he’s the same guy who hired uber-blogger, Robert Sco­ble], to create new ideas/messages in order to shake things up inter­nally. So far it’s working.

[You can see the Racks­pace car­toon archive here.]

[The com­mis­sion archive is here…]

10. THE MONSTER IN YOUR HEAD

Jerry Colonna used to be a Ven­ture Capi­ta­list. He was EXTREMELY suc­cess­ful as a part­ner with Fred Wil­son at Fla­ti­ron Part­ners. Before that, he was an invest­ment ban­ker on Wall Street.

Then he deci­ded he wan­ted out of the busi­ness. He had made his money, he now wan­ted to give back.  He wan­ted to teach.

After teaching busi­ness clas­ses at CUNY in New York for a little while, he set him­self up as a busi­ness coach. A damn good one.

“A bit like being a shrink,” he told me, “but more business-focused.”

A big part of his modus ope­randi is not telling peo­ple what to do with their busi­nes­ses, but trying to get them over their fears of achie­ving that which they MUST do, if they want to become the peo­ple they one day hope to be.

“The issues my clients fear the most tend not to be the actual stuff out there– com­pe­ti­tion, cash­flow, mar­ke­ting,” he says, “but the worst-case ima­gi­nary sce­na­rios. ‘The Mons­ter Inside Their Heads’, as it were. So a cen­tral tenet to what I do is hel­ping them to get over The Monster.”

So he com­mis­sio­ned me to draw a Monster-themed sig­ned, fine-art print to give away as pre­sents to his best cus­to­mers and allies. Something to keep on the office wall as a cons tant reminder.

I was glad to do it. I’ve always got my fair share of Mons­ters, myself. Rock on.

[The com­mis­sion archive is here…]

11. CRASHCOURSE.CA

A wee com­mis­sion I did for crashcourse.ca, an edu­ca­tion resource. Yes, I wrote the head­line. Go see.

[The com­mis­sion archive is here…]

12. THE ESCAPE POD

My old adver­ti­sing buddy, Vinny Warren, com­mis­sio­ned me to draw him a Cube Gre­nade for his Chicago-based ad agency, The Escape Pod.

“We are not in the adver­ti­sing busi­ness, we are in the decom­mo­di­fi­ca­tion busi­ness” is a line of mine that Vinny has been borro­wing from me for a while now. So it see­med appro­priate to design something around that.

[The com­mis­sion archive is here…]

13. ZEALEAP

Tim Porthouse over at Zealeap.com com­mis­sio­ned this design for his com­pany. The copy at the bot­tom (which I wrote) reads:

“when a busi­ness stops crea­ting, it dies. when a busi­ness stops crea­ting cul­ture, it dies. busi­ness cul­tu­res are not crea­ted, they are re-created. busi­ness cul­tu­res are not crea­ted, they are co-created. without colla­bo­ra­tion, there is no crea­tion. a busi­ness that does not unders­tand its own cul­ture. does not unders­tand its own busi­ness. cul­ture mat­ters. the world has got­ten too inte­res­ting and too com­pe­ti­tive to think other­wise. rea­lity is scary. rea­lity is wonderful.”

Cul­tu­ral Trans­for­ma­tion, Baby. That’s where it’s at these days. Exactly.

[The com­mis­sion archive is here…]

14. HNI

A cube gre­nade I did for HNI Insu­rance.

A lot of HNI’s truc­king clients ope­rate with pro­fit mar­gins of around 2%. Ouch.

I like the car­toon just because it’s bru­tally in-your-face and to the point. No mes­sing around.

Of course, the easiest way for their clients to inc­rease their mar­gin, is to lower their risk. Which is where HNI comes in. Ker-chiing.

[More HNI car­toons here etc.]

[The com­mis­sion archive is here…]

15. AGENCIACLICK

In early 2009 I was hired by a Bra­zi­lian ad agency, agen­ciac­lick to create a pri­va­tely com­mis­sio­ned edi­tion of the Cube Gre­nade above.

As with my other clients, they didn’t want these prints just for them­sel­ves; they wan­ted to give these out to their clients, as con­ver­sa­tion starters.

“All brands are open brands? Huh? What does that mean? Do you agree with it? Why? What does “open” actually mean? What does “brand” actually mean…?” You get the pic­ture. The same idea that made The Blue Mons­ter so suc­cess­ful. Again, it wasn’t about the mes­sage, the object. It was all about the social.

[The com­mis­sion archive is here…]

16. MICROSOFT: THE BLUE MONSTER

The Blue Mons­ter was a cartoon-based “Social Object” that me and my Mic­ro­soft buddy, Steve Clay­ton, unleashed on the good but unsus­pec­ting folk at Mic­ro­soft back in 2007. For those unfa­mi­liar with it, you can find the backs­tory here on Goo­gle. It’s pro­bably my best-know idea to date.

[The com­mis­sion archive is here…]

17. LINE2

One of car­toons I did for the  hackthephonecompany.com cam­paign for the client,Line2, the SF-based VoIP com­pany.

Yeah, we went after AT&T. Naughty us.

 

[The Line2 car­toon archive is here.]

[The com­mis­sion archive is here…]

18. RACKSPACE 2

There seems to be a con­ver­sa­tion hap­pe­ning inter­nally at my client, Racks­pace. Spearhea­ded by peo­ple like Robert Sco­ble and the guy who hired him (and who also hired me), Rob La Gesse.

“Don’t be normal”.

Who wants a “nor­mal” job, anyway?

Who wants a “nor­mal” emplo­yer, anyway?

Who wants a “nor­mal” life, anyway?

Exactly.

So why not say it, loud and proud?

So I drew some car­toons on the subject.

I’m thin­king they’d make great rec­rui­ting posters…

[P.S. At the time of pos­ting these on the blog, Rob hadn’t seen these car­toons yet. He lets me post my ideas “live”, without having to go through him first. THAT IS WHY I’m psyched to be wor­king with Rob and Racks­pace. Just so you know.]

[The com­mis­sion archive is here…]

19. JEFF SANDQUIST

Jeff Sand­quist, Robert Scoble’s old boss at Microsoft’s Chan­nel Nine, com­mis­sio­ned me to design this busi­ness card for him.

He wan­ted a design that wor­ked for both techies and non-techies alike. Something that made him appear both good at his job, but still a human being etc.

Fun! Thanks, Jeff!

[The com­mis­sion archive is here…]

[Sign up for Hugh’s “Daily Car­toon” Newsletter.]

 

 

May 23, 2009

dreck intolerance

12 Comments

[“Gin And The Cog­ni­tive Sur­plus”. The REAL rea­son why Madi­son Ave­nue is in cri­sis, the rea­son nobody in the industry ever talks about. Watch Clay Shirky’s video above, or read his blog post on the same sub­ject.]
Some years ago, me and some fellow adver­ti­sing crea­ti­ves gathe­red at Dave Carlson’s apart­ment in Chi­cago, to watch a TV show, drink some alcohol and gene­rally socia­lize. I can’t remem­ber what TV show we were watching; I do remem­ber that the show was two hours long and had LOTS of com­mer­cials.
So like the “industry-insiders” that we were, while the com­mer­cials were broad­cas­ting we’d do run­ning com­men­tary on them. “Oh, that’s shit.” “Nice boobs.” “Wow, I like that car!” “Man, who wrote THAT godaw­ful tagline…?“
Two hours later, the show ended. Every­body came to the same conc­lu­sion. Two hours of com­mer­cial bom­bard­ment later, only TWO of the com­mer­cials we thought were even remo­tely good, from a crea­tive and/or pro­fes­sio­nal stand­point. The rest– dozens of them– were com­plete, use­less, noisy dreck.
This 95%-5% Dreck/Quality ratio is about right. An adver­ti­sing crea­tive wins the occa­sio­nal award now and then, but 95% of the time, she’s pro­du­cing dreck. Work three years in an ad agency if you don’t believe me.
The inter­net, which now dic­ta­tes the terms of media to TV, a lot more than vice versa, doesn’t handle dreck very well. On the inter­net, dreck is really easy to ignore, dreck is really easy to kill. So peo­ple do ignore it. Sadly, Madi­son Ave­nue is not cul­tu­rally equip­ped to handle this kind of Dreck Into­le­rance. Their busi­ness model won’t allow it. And like the news­pa­pers, their Pen­sion Fund sha­rehol­ders won’t allow them to change their busi­ness model, no mat­ter what’s hap­pe­ning out there in Reality-ville.
Yes, it’s a bit of a problem…

“ignore everybody” prints on their way

54 Comments

[Me sig­ning copies of “Ignore Every­body” ear­lier this week. 25 boxes, 40 books in each…]
With my upco­ming book launch less than three weeks away, we deci­ded to published prints from some of the car­toons found in the book.
The book has eighty-odd car­toons in it, I’ve made a short­list of four­teen [See Below], from which I’ll actually print up three in the next cou­ple of weeks, to coin­cide with the books hit­ting the shops [UPDATE: I’ve also inc­lu­ded two or three car­toons that aren’t in the book, but maybe should have been etc.].
These prints will be sma­ller than the last ones [approx 9“x14” i.e. roughly the same dimen­sions as my Mac­Book] and chea­per [around $100-$125 for one, around $300 for the set]. They may be black and white only, or we may use maybe one color, we’re not sure yet.
In spite of their small size, like last time, they will be sig­ned, and will be prin­ted as high-quality silksc­reens.
Upmar­ket Cube Gre­na­des. Exactly.
Here is the short­list. Feel free to leave your feed­back in the com­ments, Thanks!
MISTAKENLY

WOLF VS. SHEEP

WE NEED TO TALK

I DON’T HAVE FRIENDS

WELCOME TO…

IT’S NOT WHAT THE SOFTWARE DOES

ANGELS

COMPANY HIERARCHY

DINOSAUR

IF YOU TALKED TO PEOPLE

QUALITY

GOOD FOR YOU

THE HUGHTRAIN

THRIVING IN MARKETS

May 18, 2009

pyramid of…

21 Comments

May 15, 2009

the ‘create or die’ cube grenade

10 Comments

One of my Twit­ter follo­wers sent me the pho­to­graph above. It’s the “Create or Die” image, down­loa­ded off my blog, prin­ted out and stuck onto his cube wall. Clas­sic “Cube Gre­nade” action.
If you fancy one of these for your­self, well, that’s easy enough. I’ve repos­ted the same image imme­dia­tely below. Just click on the image, down­load the high-rez ver­sion, print it out, find a wall and some Scotch tape, et Voila! Ins­tant Cube Gre­nade.

[Click on image to enlarge etc.]
If you want the more ups­cale ver­sion, there’s the large, high-quality, sig­ned, limited-edition print I’ve got for sale on the gallery web­site. And of course, if you are already a subsc­ri­ber to my CDF News­let­ter, the “hush-hush top sec­ret” offer I made to y’all last week is still open.
I know that if I put enough good stuff out there, create enough inte­rac­tion, my busi­ness model would emerge even­tually. I like my print busi­ness and the idea behind it, but already I see it as a small sub­set of the much lar­ger Cube Gre­nade idea.
We live in inte­res­ting times…
[P.S. If you have any of my Cube Gre­na­des in your pos­ses­sion, please can you e-mail some pho­tos of them to me? Thanks]

May 13, 2009

cube grenades

41 Comments

[Update: Essen­tial Rea­ding– “Work With Hugh: Everything You Always Wan­ted To Know About “Cube Gre­na­des’ But Were Afraid To Ask.”]

Above is a photo that one of my friends on Twit­ter sent me. He basi­cally down­loa­ded one of my car­toons off my blog, prin­ted it out, and stuck it outside his cube at work, for other peo­ple to see, hope­fully to com­ment on, and hope­fully, to start a con­ver­sa­tion.
This, I believe, is where my car­toons work the best– “Cube Gre­na­des”- small objects that you “throw” in there in order to cause some damage– to start a con­ver­sa­tion, to spread an idea etc.

[The Blue Mons­ter]
The Mic­ro­soft Blue Mons­ter is pro­bably my best-known Cube Gre­nade, which is why I made it into a limi­ted edi­tion print even­tually.

Seth Godin first put his Pur­ple Cow book into a pur­ple milk car­ton for the same rea­son– he gues­sed [quite rightly, as it tur­ned out] that peo­ple would see the car­ton on somebody’s desk, inquire about it, and a con­ver­sa­tion about the mar­ke­ting ideas con­tai­ned in the book would be star­ted.

[The Pur­ple Cow print]
And the Pur­ple Cow print was desig­ned the same way. OK, it might be a bit big to dis­play in a cube– you need a lot of wall space for this one– but the idea is the same– Con­ver­sa­tions that hap­pen around the object are more inte­res­ting than the actual object itself.
“Cube Gre­na­des”. Exactly. Car­toons desig­ned to affect change as “Social Objects”. Exactly.
[Check out some of my limi­ted edi­tion prints over at gapingvoidgallery.com.]

[Update:]

Since I pos­ted this “Cube Gre­na­des” idea yes­ter­day, I’ve been giving it A LOT of thought. Here are some notes:

[More “Cube Gre­na­des” in action. Click on image to enlarge etc.]
1. Like I said, my car­toons work best when they’re used as “Cube Gre­na­des” i.e. small objects that you “throw” in there in order to cause some damage– to start a con­ver­sa­tion, to spread an idea etc. But other social objects can be used as well– pur­ple milk car­tons, home­made coo­kies, funky mou­se­pads, rub­ber toys, news­pa­per clip­pings etc. It’s the peo­ple that mat­ter, not the object they socia­lize around. I don’t claim to have a mono­poly.
2. Repeat After Me: Cube Gre­na­des are Social Objects. Cube Gre­na­des are Social Objects. Cube Gre­na­des are Social Objects…
3. All big change in com­pa­nies come from the peo­ple in the trenches, who do the actual day-to-day work. To change their beha­vior, you have to change the way they inte­ract. Peo­ple inte­ract around social objects. Change the social objects, and you change the com­pany.
4. My friend, Mark Earls once told me a story about a friend of his. The friend pla­yed a key role in the mas­si­vely suc­cess­ful cor­po­rate tur­na­round recently under­ta­ken by McDonald’s.
His friend told him, “We knew we were scre­wed, NOT when the nutri­tion and green issues star­ted hit­ting the news­pa­pers, but by the sim­ple fact that our staff on the floor just weren’t clea­ning the tables and the bath­rooms like they used to. We knew THEN that our peo­ple had lost faith in our com­pany.“
What social objects were peo­ple using, both during the company’s dec­line and during its tur­na­round? What cube gre­na­des were being thrown about, both before and after? I bet you they weren’t the same.
5. Yes, I am fully aware that your cus­to­mers are paying for the qua­lity of the pro­ducts and ser­vi­ces your busi­ness pro­vi­des, not for the qua­lity of the cube gre­na­des flying around your cor­po­rate head­quar­ters. But they are all rela­ted. Everything of value that your busi­ness crea­tes is the pro­duct of a already-existing social dyna­mic. Busi­nes­ses are peo­ple, not machi­nes. And peo­ple socia­lize around objects.
6. An Open Let­ter to Ad Agen­cies: Guys, you are NOT selling mes­sa­ges any­more. You are selling social objects. The work that you create will affect the cube gre­na­des and social objects, that your clients and their cus­to­mers use to inte­ract with each other.

[More Cube Gre­na­des. “I use them as covers for my bin­ders strewn about my desk, to start con­ver­sa­tions”, says the per­son who e-mailed me the photo. Click on image to enlarge etc.]
7. You see a guy wal­king out of an Apple store, loo­king all exci­ted about his new Apple com­pu­ter he’s carr­ying under his arm? Why is he so exci­ted? Sure, he just got him­self a nice-looking piece of kit, but what REALLY exci­tes him is all of the COOL, DISRUPTIVE STUFF he’s going to MAKE with his new machine. Videos, music mixes, wha­te­ver. For his FRIENDS and his PEERS. Again, it’s the SOCIAL that makes it inte­res­ting. Apple makes cube gre­na­des, just like the ad agen­cies. Just like you do.
8. Peo­ple down­load my car­toons and stuck them on their walls by the THOUSANDS. A much sma­ller num­ber spend money to buy the more expen­sive ver­sions i.e. my prints. But the idea is the same i.e. a way for peo­ple to inte­ract. As I’m fond of saying: The con­ver­sa­tions AROUND the object are FAR more inte­res­ting than the object itself. And what is true for me is true of your pro­duct, as well. “Peo­ple Mat­ter. Objects don’t.” Exactly.
9. So when do I start char­ging? You can down­load my stuff for free, so why should you buy a print? Who says you should? I’m gues­sing that if one of my car­toons is mea­ning­ful enough to you, you’ll get tired of seeing it prin­ted on the office laser­prin­ter paper in low-resolution, get­ting all worn and torn, with the Scotch tape get­ting all yellow and crinkly. If you like the dra­wing enough, even­tually you’ll want to upgrade. The same way, back in college, that I would upgrade to vinyl or CDs, once the cheap and nasty cas­sette tape of my favo­rite band star­ted get­ting all fuzzy and worn out. The same way I gladly paid $20 to hear the band play live, rather than hear the same songs on the cas­sette. “Mea­ning Sca­les”. The more cube gre­na­des I throw out there, the more mea­ning­ful inte­rac­tion I create for other peo­ple, the more peo­ple will want to pay for it even­tually. If I loc­ked it all down as a cash-only tran­sac­tion, it would all die a horri­ble death over­night.

[Privately-commissioned “Cube Gre­na­des” i.e. limi­ted edi­tion, fine art prints that I did for my Bra­zi­lian client, agen­ciac­lick. Click on image to enlarge etc.]
10. Pro­bably the job I’m most proud of recently, is when I was hired by a Bra­zi­lian ad agency, agen­ciac­lick to create a pri­va­tely com­mis­sio­ned edi­tion of cube gre­na­des i.e. fine art prints. See photo above.
They didn’t want these prints for them­sel­ves; they wan­ted to give these out to their clients, as con­ver­sa­tion star­ters.
“All brands are open brands? Huh? What does that mean? Do you agree with it? Why? What does “open” actually mean? What does “brand” actually mean…?” You get the pic­ture. The same idea that made The Blue Mons­ter so suc­cess­ful. Again, it wasn’t about the mes­sage, the object. It was all about the social.

11. My long-term goal is to make more privately-commissioned “Cube Gre­na­des” for more clients like agen­ciac­lick. It was a won­der­ful wor­king expe­rience for me, and I want to spend more time in that busi­ness. If you find this idea inte­res­ting, please feel free to e-mail me at gapingvoid@gmail.com. Thanks.

(more…)

May 11, 2009

cdf newsletter offer

14 Comments

[$50 Depo­sit Button.…]

[The offi­cial Pay­Pal depo­sit but­ton for my latest “Crazy, Deran­ged Fools” News­let­ter offer. To get the details, you need to have already been subsc­ri­bed to it etc.]

welcome to the hunger

34 Comments

Wel­come to The Hun­ger.
The Hun­ger to do something crea­tive.
The Hun­ger to do something ama­zing.
The Hun­ger to change the world.
The Hun­ger to make a dif­fe­rence.
The Hun­ger to enjoy one’s work.
The Hun­ger to be able to look back and say, Yeah, cool, I did that.
The Hun­ger to make the most of this utterly brief blip of time Crea­tion has given us.
The Hun­ger to dream the good dreams.
The Hun­ger to have ama­zing peo­ple in our lives.
The Hun­ger to have the synap­ses con­ti­nually fired up on over­drive.
The Hun­ger to expe­rience beauty.
The Hun­ger to tell the truth.
The Hun­ger to be part of something big­ger than your­self.
The Hun­ger to have good sto­ries to tell.
The Hun­ger to stay the course, des­pite of the odds.
The Hun­ger to feel pas­sion.
The Hun­ger to know and express Love.
The Hun­ger to know and express Joy.
The Hun­ger to chan­nel The Divine.
The Hun­ger to actually feel alive.
The Hun­ger will give you everything. And it will take from you, everything. It will cost you your life, and there’s not a damn thing you can do about it.
Wel­come to The Hun­ger. Its day has arri­ved. It will never go away. You have been told.

May 8, 2009

on finding “meaningful work”

8 Comments

Back in Octo­ber, I wrote a rela­ti­vely can­did blog post, “Note to My ‘Tribe’: Where are we hea­ded, Any­way?“

And as our mutual friend, Seth says, every tribe needs a lea­der:

The next fron­tier of mar­ke­ting is in lea­ding groups of peo­ple who are wor­king together to get somewhere.

I con­cur. So I’m gues­sing that “Lea­der” job now falls down to me.
Don’t get too exci­ted. I’m not Gandhi, I’m just a car­too­nist in West Texas with a few crazy ideas up my sleeve. I find the pros­pect of lea­ding a “tribe” a bit daun­ting, to be honest.
Lea­dership does not exist in a vacuum, you need somewhere to actually lead your tribe to. Moses had the Land of Milk & Honey. MLK had The Pro­mi­sed Land. Tho­mas Jef­fer­son had the newly-formed Uni­ted Sta­tes. Putin has a strong and proud Rus­sia. Doc Searls has The Clue­train. Steve Clay­ton and his friends within Mic­ro­soft have The Blue Mons­ter.
Me? I have no idea. Like I said, I’m just a car­too­nist…
The good news is, to lead a tribe you don’t neces­sa­rily have to have a pro­mi­sed land, a uto­pian vision, or a new world order to lead a tribe. You simply need what my other great mar­ke­ting friend, Mark Earls calls “The Purpose-Idea”, which as a bona fide Social Object, is THE REASON why peo­ple are joi­ning together in the first place.
I’ve been telling my clients for years now, if you’re going to have a follo­wing, a com­mu­nity, a “tribe”, it can’t just be about you and your lovely pro­duct. It’s got to be about something higher than, and beyond… your­self.
What is true for them is, yes, also true for me. Like I told my good friend, James Gover­nor on Twit­ter the other day,

If I’m to lead a “Tribe”, it needs to be for MUCH bet­ter rea­sons than “Please buy my litho­graphs, they’re very nice etc.”

Or my ori­gi­nal dra­wings. Or my book. Or my con­sul­ting ser­vi­ces. Or my spea­king gigs. Or whatever.

I’m happy to report, Seth left a very kind remark in the com­ments:

Ask us something hard, Hugh!
Your mis­sion is clear. You are lea­ding us where we want to go. You are pushing us to demand the pos­si­ble, not to accept the sta­tus quo. In an extraor­di­na­rily direct and pas­sio­nate way, you push your­self (and us) to look at what we do honestly and to remove the bullshit and get down to what mat­ters.
That’s where I want to go, anyway.

When I was eigh­teen, just after I had finished my final exams at high school, I went out and got my first real job. Trai­nee bar­ten­der at Whigham’s Wine Bar, Edin­burgh, Scot­land. I loved that job; I kept it every sum­mer for four years. The guy who hired me, Nick Hen­der­son, was a great man.
Since then I have been on the same, unen­ding quest: To find “Mea­ning­ful Work”.
“Mea­ning­ful” is like “Crea­tive”; its defi­ni­tion is a sub­jec­tive call. I can’t tell you what’s mea­ning­ful to you. Nor can you do the same with me. All we can do is agree that somewhere deep within all of us, the hun­ger to find it is real.
My blog for the last eight years has been a mish-mash of all sorts of dif­fe­rent things. Car­toons. Selling prints. Mar­ke­ting 2.0. The Glo­bal Mic­ro­brand. “Crea­ti­vity”.
Wha­te­ver. No mat­ter what topic I was blethe­ring on about that day, this blog has always been dri­ven by the same thing that has always dri­ven me. Fin­ding mea­ning­ful work.
I’ve come close to fin­ding it a cou­ple of times. It’s never easy. It’s always elu­sive. I often wish that weren’t the case, but it is. Sorry.
[P.S. The best way to sup­port what I’m doing is to sign up to my “Crazy, Deran­ged Fools” News­let­ter. Thanks!]

May 5, 2009

500 free signed copies of “ignore everybody” now available

13 Comments

[The book jac­ket– click on image to see enlar­ged PDF ver­sion etc.]

[Update: This offer is now clo­sed. Thanks, Everybody!!!]

As most of you will know, my book, IGNORE EVERYBODY comes out on June 11th.
A lot of peo­ple have been asking me about where can they get sig­ned copies, so I came up with a new, sec­ret, evil plan.
[UPDATE:] To cele­brate the June 11th book launch, I’m offe­ring a spe­cial signed-copy deal to the FIRST 500 peo­ple who pre-order the book.
Here are the gui­de­li­nes [Please follow them care­fully, so you don’t miss out…]:
1. The first 500 peo­ple who order the book AND send their elec­tro­nic receipt/confirmation num­ber to IgnoreEverybody@gmail.com will get a second (per­so­nally sig­ned) book from me. So if you pre-order a book, you’ll get a free extra copy [i.e. two for the price of one] — one sig­ned from me, one unsig­ned from whiche­ver online book­se­ller you choose [See choi­ces below]. One to keep, one to give to a friend. Easy.
[Update: Yes, you can get a sig­ned copy if you’ve already pre-ordered a book. Yes, you can get a sig­ned copy if you live outside the U.S.- but there’s a catch. No, Sorry, this offer is not open to Kindle, hard­back only. Please read below CAREFULLY for further details.]
2. Order the “unsig­ned” book from any one of these online book­se­llers:

Ama­zon.

Bar­nes & Noble.

Bor­ders.

800-CEO-READ. (great for bulk buys)

Indie­Bound. [to find an inde­pen­dent store]

3. Then please for­ward your receipt/confirmation num­ber to this spe­cial email address: IgnoreEverybody@gmail.com. You’ll receive a con­fir­ma­tion email with direc­tions for sub­mit­ting your ship­ping address.
4. This offer is limi­ted to only the first 500 peo­ple who email us their receipts — I’ll post an update here to let you know if if and when the spe­cial offer has been clo­sed.
5. This offer is for U.S. ORDERS ONLY. Sorry, Glo­bal Sports­fans, but the logis­tics are just WAY too com­plex to ship them abroad. Long story. Ouch. If you live abroad, and STILL INSIST on get­ting a sig­ned copy, that’s easy, once you get your con­fir­ma­tion e-mail, just supply a US mai­ling address [i.e. c/o a friend in New York or whe­re­ver], and we’ll gladly send it there.
6. If you’ve already pre-ordered the book and live in the U.S., no worries, you can still get in on the deal — just be in the first 500 to send in your receipt, and I’ll hap­pily honor it. Ditto if you live abroad– just give us a U.S. pos­tal address [see Point # 5] and we’ll honor that as well.
7. This offer is hard­back only. Not for Kindle. Sorry.
8. Please do not con­tact me per­so­nally to get on this list — please just use IgnoreEverybody@gmail.com.
9. The books are already sig­ned, so you should receive them very shortly.
10. Thanks Again, As Always, for your Love and Sup­port!
–Hugh

[P.S. The best way to sup­port my work is to sign up to my “Crazy, Deran­ged Fools” News­let­ter. Thanks!]

May 4, 2009

Dear God,

10 Comments

Dear God,
Do you mind if I call you that?
You gotta admit, “God” is bit of a silly name…
I guess it’s bet­ter than calling you “Fred”, “George”, “Larry” or wha­te­ver…
Just askin’…
Kin­dest Regards,
Hugh

May 2, 2009

the cat

2 Comments

[A “Wolf vs Sheep” print arri­ved at Matt Langdon’s house. The cat is imme­dia­tely sus­pi­cious etc.]
[Update:] Matt left the follo­wing in the com­ments:

My cats love plas­tic, what can I say?
Fan­tas­tic print Hugh. The qua­lity actually sur­pri­sed me and I was expec­ting high quality.

As they say in Inter­net circ­les, w00t!

more hot @stormhoek action in #alpinetexas #futilemarketing

1 Comment

[Video by Loren Feld­man]
Like Loren said:

Hugh’s dedi­ca­tion to his work is ins­pi­ring to me. When he sets his mind to something there is simply no stop­ping him. Take Stormhoek if it kills him he’s gonna get the word out in Alpine.

My evil plan is have Stormhoek the most tal­ked about wine in the his­tory of Brews­ter County. You have my word on that, Peo­ple.
[#futi­le­mar­ke­ting]

May 1, 2009

note to archair quarterback

3 Comments

[From a recent Twit­ter post.]

social proof: “where the molecules are”

5 Comments

I took this pic­ture when I was in Miami, while the “Wolf vs Sheep” prints were being pac­ked and ship­ped. A cus­to­mer asked me on Twit­ter for a pro­gress report. So I sho­wed her [and all my other Twit­ter follo­wers] this photo– the print moun­ted on ship­ping card­board, as “Social Proof”.
When you’re run­ning an online busi­ness, where everything is arti­cu­la­ted via digi­tal, it’s good to offer your cus­to­mers a real-time glimpse into the real world, “Where The Mole­cu­les Are”.
This is why I ask all my cus­to­mers to please send me pho­tos. It offers ME social proof, that all this is real, that yes, my idea went all the way from con­cept, to design, to prin­ting, to ship­ping, to cus­to­mers’ walls. It’s a won­der­ful fee­ling. These are my “babies”, after all– I love seeing where they end up!
This is also why I set up a Flickr pho­tos­tream for the prints i.e to offer more “Proof”.
Proof is a good thing. Proof is my friend. The more “Proof” that is freely avai­la­ble out there, the more easy it is for some­body to trust my name, my brand and my pro­duct.
And this, of course, is also true with your business…