CrapHammer

A New Journey

I have long been driven to help people fuel their passion and align with their purpose. This has taken public form in projects like mostpassionate.ca and Attention Surplus, my podcast with Eric Portelance. Now I find my scope widening to include animals.

The leap to working with animals was a sudden and unexpected wrong-way turn up a one-way street. It seemed strange and jarring, even to me, which is saying something as I have been a juggler, animator, programmer, hacker, strategist, photographer and more in my 42 years. But this move seemed different - I found myself second guessing everything and I was afraid to tell people of my new career.

"Clarity doesn't just come to anyone, it is earned - and we earn it through a vigorous pursuit of something larger than ourselves."

I had known for quite some time that I didn't love my day job but the money was good and it seemed unthinkable to throw away 15+ years in digital strategy and advertising. I just needed to find a different agency or home for the work I did, right?

Continue reading the full story on MostPassionate.ca >

Go straight to my Up with Pup site >

The end of craphammer

A little over a year ago I set out to launch a project.  For months I would do everything in my power to work on anything else under the sun. The project scared me. There was no client. There was no one else to blame if things went wrong. And frankly, it was too close to my heart and my purpose.

Friends and associates stepped forward on every front. Without them I never would have been able to make this project see the light of day. Some designed logos for me. Others built the back end. Some stepped forward to help me on my first mini doc for the new site.

I wanted to document, speak with and understand the most passionate people I could find, whether they be artists, parents, circus performers or gardeners. I wanted to find and understand these people. I wanted to know what it was like to be them and share their motivations, tools and outlook with the rest of us.

Craphammer was a fun and key part of my professional life that has been dormant for far too long. So now it is time for me to let go and turn my attentions to the mostpassionate.ca.

I hope you will take a minute to stop by and check it out. I'll save a place for you there.

 

Social Media Monitoring: Finding Relationships

It's finally out! Our paper (deck, really) on using SM Monitoring to find relationships. We wanted to do more on the qualitative front but ran out of time/cycles. We dug enough to show the people we are finding are likely of value to the brand.

Social Media Monitoring - Finding Relationships

Love to know your thoughts/reactions.

How to be a Creative Leader

Want to be a great leader?

Watch this video.

The Creative Leader – What To Do When the Way’s Not Clear from Ben Stone on Vimeo.

I love Michael too much.  I think I have a man crush.  :)

Sean

Rethinking Digital and Social Marketing for the Arts

Or the five hardest questions I've ever been asked.

Rethinking Digital and Social Marketing for the Arts

The presentation that I gave today to the International Society for the Performing Arts.

The PlanningNess Flip

First, an amazing shout out to Mark and Claire as planning-ness 2011 was beyond inspiring. This event remains the top planning/strategy conference on the planet and I look forward to attending every year.

If there was one theme from this year's planningness, it was about flipping the AIDA model on its head and to start with action. I had the honour of finally meeting Adrian Ho from Zeus Jones face to face and his presentation carried the shift in strategy/planning to its ultimate conclusion - less is more.

Production as strategy

View more presentations from Zeus Jones