March 27, 2011
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Hugh MacLeod
Hi, I'm Hugh.
My life is committed to drawing little illustrations that spread messages, inspire people, help businesses kick butt & support causes.
Gapingvoid is based upon the science of how these cartoons work.
If we can help you or your business, please email us here.
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Archive for March, 2011
r 007
PS Check out the little [“Love heart + Heart”] symbol on the bottom right. It’s there for a reason. #WinkWink
does your schtick have a good creation myth? if not, maybe it needs one?
1. Silicon Valley was born in 1939, when Messieurs Hewlett & Packard started their company in a small garage in Paulo Alto.
2. In his book, “Delivering Happiness”, Zappos CEO Tony Hsieh speaks of in great length about “The Loft”, a place where all his friends used to hang out and party, and how this sense of “meaningful gathering” went on to inform the core values of his now-famous shoe company.
3. A very dated-looking photograph from 1978. Eleven young, goofy-looking techies. They turn out to be the founding members of Microsoft, including Bill Gates.
4. Michael Dell founding his computer empire in his dorm room at the University of Texas.
5. Ben & Jerry’s started making ice cream in a converted gas station in Vermont.
6. The business guru, Tom Peters often writes about how his time as a young man serving in the US Navy helped evolve his now-famous worldview.
7. Rock star physicists, Brian Cox talks passionately about the Big Bang Theory.
8. How a despondent, burned-out, second-rate advertising copywriter FINALLY got his groove when he started drawing cartoons on the back of business cards.
9. The Beatles playing those early gigs at The Cavern Club in Liverpool.
10. The famous tech blogger, Robert Scoble talking about his job working in a discount camera store, back when he was a kid.
11. How a bunch of young, angry social misfits start a small nightclub, the Cabaret Voltaire, in 1916 Zurich [at the height of World War One] and in the process invent Dada, one of the 20th Century’s most influential art movements.
12. Abe Lincoln was born in a log cabin.
So… What do these all have in common?
They’re all Creation Myths. That’s right; just like The Garden of Eden.
We humans seem to need them, somehow. They manage to articulate who we really are, somehow. The help explain our core values, somehow.
And for whatever reason, REALLY successful people are even more likely to have them, even more likely to need them, somehow.
Does your schtick have a good creation myth? If not, maybe it needs one?
Think about it.
March 22, 2011
on living the bliss-centered life…
After a decade or so since I last devoured his books, these last few weeks I’ve been happily, gloriously rediscovering the work of Joseph Campbell, the famed mythologist.
My story is a common one among Campbell fans. A clueless, socially inept, lost kid with no idea about what to do or where to fit in the world, and suddenly along comes Joe Campbell with three simple, life-changing words:
“Follow Your Bliss”.
Boom! A moment of total clarity. A moment of incandescent lucidity.
Of course! FOLLOW YOUR BLISS! What else is there worth doing, besides that? How better to spend one’s life?
At the time, it made total sense. I mean, REALLY!!!!.…
I only first heard of Joseph Campbell the day I read his obituary, back in 1987 (A fact that still makes me sad, I’m not quite sure why). I then checked him out at the bookstore, and I found his work, quite frankly, mind-blowing. Transformative!
A floodgate of possibility being opened. Whoosh! Like being hit by a spiritual tidal wave.
But the thing is…
Joseph may have told me to follow my bliss, but he never told me how. He really didn’t have to many concrete tips or pointers. He just told his readers to just do it.
Much to our chagrin, it was something we were just going to have to figure out all by ourselves…
I was a bit intimidated by that. I think we all are, when we first encounter Campbell’s work. Do we have what it takes, do we have the guts to take what he said, make the necessary sacrifices etc etc and ACTUALLY apply it to our own lives?
I remember that fear well, a quarter century later…
So, now that I’m older, now that it seems I’ve followed my bliss pretty well, and it also seems to have panned out pretty OK for me creatively and careerwise, I now have young people asking me the very same question that Joseph’s students once asked him– “How do I do follow my bliss?”
Experience taught me well that there’s is no definitive answer. There is no instruction manual.
You just decide to do it, and then you go and do it. Or not. Whatever. It’s your call. It’s your path.
And it takes as long as it takes. Decades, maybe. An entire lifetime, even. There is no timeline. Nor any guarantees that you’ll succeed.
Nobody can do it for you. Nobody can go there for you– that mysterious place where the central energy of your being finds its source. Yes, you may fail in your quest to find it. But that risk is what makes it so damn powerful and interesting.
And Joseph Campbell would’ve told you the exact same thing.
Thinking about this earlier this evening, I drew the above cartoon just for the heck of it. I hope you like it, but I’m fine if you don’t.. Those little squiggly abstract drawings I do; well, that’s my bliss. Your bliss is something else. Your bliss is your own, not mine or anyone else’s.
Bliss. You have it within you, we already know that. The question is what you’re going to do about it.
Thank you, Joseph Campbell. Thank you all for reading. Godspeed!
March 21, 2011
posterous & the basic human need to share ourselves with others
My second cartoon for a Rackspace customer is for Posterous, the photo-sharing, proto-blogging site.
Basically, Posterous is a site that makes it easy to upload and share photos. It’s simple and straightforward. It doesn’t need a lot of explaining, really.
And nor should it have to. Talking to their CEO, Sachin Agarwal on the phone the other week, it’s apparent they want their service to have mainstream, mom n’ pop usage, not just something for the geeks…
As for the cartoon, well, I was determined NOT to draw yet another one of my cute-sy “monstercritter” cartoons [I was already doing a lot of them for Rackspace already], but in spite of my best intentions, this Posterous one just stuck, somehow… the humanity of it.
We know the point of photos is to document the seen world, capture memories and all that. But a big a part of that is the social and emotional– the creation of what I call “Sharing Devices”- social objects that allow us to share ourselves with others.
i.e. Posterous’ value comes not from the actual photos per se, but from a very human need that was around long before photography (or cave painting, for that matter) was even invented.
March 17, 2011
“unifying work and love”: the first #evilplans salon– downtown miami, 7.30pm, wednesday, 23rd march
[The #sxswCares logo I did at SXSW in aid of the Japanese Tsunami etc…].
“South-By” is pretty much over for the year. So what’s next?
gapingvoid is having its first “Evil Plans” salon on Wednesday evening, the 23rd of March at 7.30pm, just under a week from now. Downtown Miami.
It will be limited to 15 people. The theme of the evening will be “Unifying work and love”, a subject very dear to pretty much every gapingvoid reader alive.
If you’re in town that evening and want to attend, please RSVP my business partner, Jason Korman, for a slot: jtkorman@gmail.com. He’ll send you the details. Thanks.
This is going to be the start of something– something big, I hope. As much as I love SXSW, it’s gotten too big, Austin is too far away and it’s only on once a year.
I want to do something cool in Miami, about once a month. Something meaningful. Something where the cool kids can hang out and meet each other. A very miniature mini-conference, as it were, centered around our collective #EvilPlans. Rock on…
March 11, 2011
sxsw 2011
[The view of Trade Show Booth # 345 – 347 etc.]
[This is my official landing page for SXSW. I’ll be keeping it at the top of my homepage for the duration…]
I will be spending most of my time at the trade show booth. That’s the best place to find me. Booth # 345 – 347.
SATURDAY:
12.10 pm. Book singing at the Barnes & Noble stand.
4.00pm My old highschool buddy, the director, Dave Mackenzie has a film premier I’m going to.
SUNDAY:
Lunch. Barbecue with Scoble, Tony Hsieh and Rackspace…
I’m doing something with Loopt…
I have a new line of business cards…
NB. I’m writing this on the hoof, so if it all looks a wee but incomplete. Too busy running around, trying to see Everybody…
March 7, 2011
laughing squid.…
I just drew this wee cartoon for one of my favorite brands, Laughing Squid.
Laughing Squid aka my good friend, Scott Beale, GETS it. Really, really gets it. Very few brands seem to be able to truly understand both the Art and the Internet so well. The only other guys I know who come close are Boing Boing.
I think it’s so cool that when Scott talks to people at parties, he’ll often talk to somebody who LOVES Laughing Squid, KNOWS Laughing Squid well, but still has no idea that web hosting is what Laughing Squid actually does for a living.
To be so great, you don’t evern need to tell people about it in order for it to work.
That is rare. That is a gift. That is THE gift. To be able to do that. That is what inspired the cartoon. Yes, exactly.
But that’s not the only reason I’m writing this. Full Disclosure: My client, Rackspace, recently commissioned me to draw a “Cube Grenade” cartoon for one of their favorite customers. A “social gesture” from them to say thanks, as it were. They gave me a shortlist, Scott’s name was on top. I was delighted to find him there.
Secondly, Laughing Squid is also one of Rackspace’s oldest customers. We’re talking REALLY early days. That isn’t common knowledge, I only just found out. But I was delighted to learn that; I really was.
So thanks to Scott, Laughing Squid, Rackspace and everybody else who “gets it”, who truly knows and truly feels the love.
Yes, you know exactly what I’m talking about. Godbless.
[Check out the other Rackspace cartoons here etc. Check out the Cube Grenade homepage here etc etc.]
March 2, 2011
“alea iacta est.”
[My latest cartoon. Download the printable version here etc.]
Dear Rackspace,
You being my client and all, I thought now would be a good time to let you know my current thinking:
You love startups. You live and breathe making them happy. You live and breathe trying to be helpful to them. You live and breathe “Fanatical”.
Sure, other companies offer the same kind of hosting that you do– Amazon being the best known example.
But it’s your particular brand of “Fanatical” that permeates your culture… THAT is what makes you unique; THAT is what your competitors DON’T have; THAT is your secret weapon.
And the minute you lose that, of course, is the minute you start to die.
Not everybody reading this is going to believe what I’ve just said. Some will remain skeptical, both inside and outside your company. Frankly, I don’t care. I’ve been working with y’all long enough to know that I’m speaking the truth.
“We Love Startups.” That is your mantra. That is your line in the sand.
And now you’re going to have to live it. Now that the line has been drawn, I’m never going to allow you to take those words back. Nor will anyone else. Ever. Nor should you.
“We Love Startups.” That is what the startup community must know about Rackspace. They must know it AND believe it. All of them. That is the mission.
[PS: Note to Rackers: If your boss will let you, feel free to use the cartoon in your email signature. Spread the love etc.]
