November 16, 2011
The Finanser
[The latest Cube Grenade we did for The Financer, the London-based blog and social club. Backstory here…]
Hugh MacLeod
I'm a cartoonist.
I sell limited-edition prints.
I wrote a book.
I'm CEO of Stormhoek USA, which markets South African wine in the States.
I also draw private commissions.
Prints |
Opening | Current |
|---|---|---|
NY NY |
$275 |
Archive for November, 2011
November 15, 2011
What IS a social object?
We’ve had a lot of people send emails and approach us with the same question, and it’s one we are always very eager and happy to answer: What IS a social object?
The thing is, it’s simple to understand literally, but what does social action gravitating around an object have to do with the cartoons I draw, you ask. Here’s the thing – I don’t draw cartoons to be hoisted up on the walls of some gallery for people to walk through and look at. I draw cartoons to encourage social dialog.
It’s not about staring at something and asking, “What does this mean?” It’s about relating to something. I take thoughts and ideas that have passed through ALL of our heads from time to time and put it in a format that encourages us to actually TALK about it.
So, again, what are social objects? There are many different types (some are VERY complex), but the gapingvoid brand of social object is designed to communicate meaning in unexpected ways. My cartoons don’t come with an explanation, and two people may have different interpretations, but they find a place inside of hearts and minds that make people want to share them — That’s what makes them Social and that’s the beauty of it. And it is why I love doing what I do. It’s just…simple.
Jyri Engstrom and “Wave Media vs Particle Media”
[Photo courtesy of @MissDestructo]
Above are some of the social object cartoons we had on display the other week at Blogworld… clients including Rackspace, Babson College, Intel etc etc.
The one on the top left got the most reaction, I wonder why 
The mission continues: to spread the message that yes, social objects ARE the future of marketing.
I think it’ll take a while to spread but hey, there’s been some serious recent progress: In his big keynote at Blogworld, Jim Farley, the CMO of Ford Motors said, “Cars are social objects”.
Wow. I was right there in the audience, hearing it live. I could hardly believe it.
It felt like a coup…
As you probably know already, I was turned onto the social object idea by the antropologist, Jaiku founder and former Google employee, Jyri Engstrom, at his big talk at Reboot 2005 (which has gone in history a one of the best tech conferences ever, btw).
A year before that, I had met Jyri for the first time at Joi Ito’s big geek dinner in London, where we talked about how blogging was all about “particle media”, whereas traditional broadcast was all about “wave media”.
Wave vs Particle. Exactly.
And what do these particles consist of? Social Objects. Exactly.
Jyri knew what I meant, kinda sorta. You?
[CAVEAT: This post is not a finely crafted piece of blog literature, witeen for posterity, but me just thinking outloud. But there’s some things in here worth thinking about firther etc.]
November 14, 2011
“How To Make The Internet Squeal Like A Pig”
[Babson President Len Schlesinger making the intro…]
Last Saturday my business parter, Jason Korman and I gave a wee Q&A talk up at Babson College entitled, “How To Make The Internet Squeal Like A Pig”, as part of their tenth annual Babson Enterprise Forum. Below are the rough notes/transcription, with Jason asking the questions and me doing the answering. Thanks Again to Len for the great opportunity, we had a blast!
[Further Reading: “Why Social Objects are the Future of Marketing…”]
HOW TO MAKE THE INTERNET SQUEAL LIKE A PIG
Q. So, Make the Internet Squeal like a pig, what you mean by that?
If you’re going to be an entrepreneur these days, you’re going to have to figure out the Internet.
From the entrepreneur’s perspective, what makes the Internet tick? From an entrepreneurial perspective, what actually works?
We’ve built a tidy internet based business over the last ten years, b just obeying a few rules and they’re not easy to execute, but they are easy to understand.
Q. If you were going to generalize about these rules, what could you say?
The Internet is just like anywhere else– offline is just like online. Basically, the ideas that spread, win. The ideas that go no where, lose.
Q. So what spreads, how do you create stuff that goes viral?
Viral is a figment of people’s imagination.
The thing that spreads online, of course, is “great content”. This great content can either be your product itself (Huffington Post), or content about or somehow connected to your product (37 Signals).
November 4, 2011
“Communication With Purpose”
This is the new calling card I designed for gapingvoid. Note how the message is more communication-based, rather than art-based. Exactly. Also, the message is more about the team (Jason, Laura, Sammy and myself), as opposed to about just me and the drawings.
“Communication With Purpose”. Exactly.
Going to Blogworld Los Angeles
Very cool– I’m headed to Blogworld LA tomorrow (Wednesday). It’s the West Coast’s ginormous social media & podcsting shindig, and it’s always a blast to be there.
I was really excited when Dave Cynkin, co-founder of Blogworld asked me to draw a design for their first ever t-shirt. They’ve only printed a small number, and it will be for sale at the event, which starts on Thursday.
Me and Jason (my business partner, and CEO of gapingvoid) will both be at Blogworld through Saturday. We’ll be meeting old friends, and talking to companies who want to hire gapingvoid to help start “smarter conversations”, have kick ass content for social media and want their ideas spread like lightning.
Email me, hugh@gapingvoid.com, if you want to meet up there. Rock on.
