CrapHammer

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.

 

What we REALLY know

Fuck.  Fuck.  Fuck.

I can't say any more or less at this point about the following presentation.

Other than to say it is filled with more nuggets per pound than anything I've read in the past 2 years.

The Real Life Social Network v2

View more documents from Paul Adams.

Long Tail of Branding and PSFK Salon January 30

I'm working on a few posts but in the interim I've come across a few tidbits I felt are worth sharing.

1)  The Elongating Tail of Brand Communications.

Mohammed Iqbal presents a compelling view of the future of brands.  He looks at the growing inefficiencies inherent in traditional media and where emerging trends such as transmedia fall short (an inability to go far enough to "forego the single minded brand proposition".)  His attacks on "Lord Saatchi" and the "one word" approach are a bit caustic but a delightful breath of fresh air.

"Most of the considered reaction was an unequivocal rejection of the disingenuous and un-layered simplicity a One Word Equity exercise leaves behind. Simplifying was one thing, simplicity was another."

I recommend this paper quite highly.  Iqbal applies the economics of the long tail to our world of marketing and advertising.  He looks at where the barriers between supply and demand are eroding and lays out some very innovative ideas around the opportunities that are emerging.

Download a copy of the whitepaper here.

2)  UK - Good Ideas Salon London

Piers from PSFK contacted me about their upcoming Salon on January 30'th.  I have to give Piers credit.  PSFK remains one of the only "trend" firms I still follow.  They offer insights versus making up new "trends" to sell their clients every quarter.  His email to me was also a classic example of how to engage someone like myself.  He reached out to me personally and referenced the collaboration panel as he knows I'm all about collaborative design and research.  I wish just ONE "social media consulting/pr/outreach" firm would learn this lesson as I'm really tired of the form emails.

Anyway, I highly recommend any chance to mingle with Piers and his staff and wish I was in London so I could attend...  ;(

You can find out more here.

Link Tuesdays, Episode 3

Adliterate calls for a rethinking and move back to powerful brand monologues.  He argues powerfully that this shift towards working with empowered consumers is anything BUT an argument against brand monologues.  I give a lot of links to Richard cause he's f'ing brilliant (for an old timer - grin).  Worth a read.

Uploaded with Skitch!

Skitch is the SHIT.  I have been a long proponent of Snapz Pro X on the Mac.  But no more.  Skitch kicks its ass.  I can grab screenshots, annotate them and share them quickly, effectively and easily.  Brilliant.  Send me a comment if you want an invite.  But I only have 2.  Kate is rumored to have 50!  ;)

Do you have a Flogging program?  LOL.  Johnnie Moore points out this great link to a video on how to deploy forced blogging inside your organization.  If you enjoy, follow or support KM practices in any way, you have to watch this video.  Love it.

What can Jazz bring to planning?  The meme huffer brings it home with Mingus.

But to bring my list home is no-one other than the ubiquitous Gavin.  Want to understand what drives social media?  A very smart woman told me the other day that local is what is immediately available to us.  Gavin builds a smaller world for me to share.

Link Tuesdays, Episode 1

Okay.  I'm implementing Link Tuesdays.  Where I can pull together some of the great, crazy and mind boggling posts that I want to link to but don't have the time (or skill) to pull into a larger in-context post.

Greg Verdino brings it home with some wonderful how-to videos from Common Craft showing beginners the basics of the new social media realm.  Check out Social Networking in Plain English or Wikis in Plain English.

Kate leads into the above thread with 9 easy, social media steps to get beyond fear and laziness in marketing.  Great tips for anyone getting into the game.  Love her approach to finding ones passion and working from there.

On the planning front, we can learn everything we need from South Park.  Yup.  You read that right.  Richard Huntington pulls no punches on his blog and this is a great example.  Such a simple story about underpants underlying a call for more accountability in the planning field.  How solid are your briefs?   (bad pun intended.)

Katie and Matt are going at it regarding our approach to planning.  They point to chaos as a better model. I quote, "To exercise maximum influence in a complex system, we have to give up our pretentions to control every part of it."

Look ma, I posted!

Image Credit:  eschipul

Kudos to the thinkers...

Lewis Green honored me along with some amazing names the other day.  Namely: Cam Beck of ChaosScenario, Gavin Heaton of Servant of Chaos, Mario Vellandi at Melodies in Marketing and Becky Carroll of Customers Rock.  I was amazed to be included in such a list.

Lewis in turn asked each of us to pick the 5 bloggers that make us think.

It's not a fair task.  And likely I am leaving out so very many even after cheating and going over the 5 number.  And I've tried to leave off those who've already been nominated.

Ardi XIV:  I'm a new reader to Pieter Ardinois' blog.  His writing verges on a stream of conciousness at times and it forever expels me up back into the world, gasping a cold breath and suddenly awake.

Get Shouty:  This post made my brain hurt for a week.  Katie's love of chaos, numbers and philosophy are a deadly and amazing combination.  But be careful.  Her ideas are radioactive.  There's no going back.

Justin Kirby:  I subscribe to Justin in a number of locations.  He's running rampant through my bloglines.  But the link on the left is to my favorite Kirby location.  It's his podcasts on engagement marketing.  Have you listened to the Greg Calle or Alan Moore interviews?  Do.  Brilliant.

Matt Moore:  EngineersWithoutFears is, frankly, an even better blog name than craphammer.  Love it.  But I must warn you.  Matt has the ability to make me think so much my brain actually implodes.  It's very messy and means I can only read his blog once a week with a surgical team standing by...

Johnnie Moore:  I'm a Johnny Moore stalker.  But lucky for him I'm on a different continent.  He is one of the first blogs I began reading consistently.  I love how he mixes industry news with philosophical discussions and quandaries.  And his RSS feed means I don't have to stand in the rain with binoculars.  ;)

Charles Frith:  Punk Planning.  I must admit that the name had me picturing an angry-at-the-world drug-hazed psychotic rambling of a site.  And the experience isn't that far off.  Only Charles is so amazingly well read and articulate.  He's going to take over the world one day.  Are you ready?

Richard Huntington:  Mr. Adliterate.  Anyone reading my blog for any period will likely have seen me launch more than one post off of a topic I was following on adliterate.  It helps that he's at the top of my bloglines alphabetically.  But it's also that I consider him close to a role model for my own foray into this crazy world of communications.

Paul Paetz:  The Anti-Marketer, himself.  Paul actually taught me what market disruption is.  And his blog remains an amazingly insightful view into disruption at play in the market around us.

Okay.  Anyone I forgot can  now lambaste me in public, cry, remove me from their bloglines or even send me airline tickets to distant locales so they can beat me up in person.  I highly recommend that last option.  Far more satisfying for all parties!

The rest of you named above can now have award 5 (or more) bloggers each.  Or... Or... I'll send YOU a one way ticket to Canada!  Don't make me do it!

(I'm hoping to be back in the saddle again soon.  After 3 years, we are working to reposition our agency and launch a new presence online.  More updates to come on this, unless someone takes pity on me and shoots me first.  please.)

Blog Tipping March

Two posts a day.  The craphammer is in meltdown!  Actualy, I'm just late to post this.  It's Blog Tipping time, or rather, it was.  This month I looked deep into my blog roll to find a few gems some of you may not be aware of.

As always, the format is to identify why I recommend each of these sites and then to offer one tip to each.

Meme Huffer (link)

I love in-your-face, tell it as it is people, blogs and porn.  But the only blog I follow that had the balls to post the Food Porn video would be Jason.  Great stuff.  And a site any planner should follow, Romanian or otherwise.  And the best part is I finally managed to get a link to the Food Porn video onto Craphammer.

Tip:  Comment back to commenters!

Pow!  Right Between the Eyes (link)

Okay. I recently called Andy an American so one could assume this is to beg forgiveness.  And while there might be some truth to that, I would argue that I've been following Andy's blog for a long time and it's one of my first stops.  The focus on surprise as a tangible element in successful campaigns is brilliant and has the added benefit of keeping his blog exciting and fun to follow.

Tip:  Put a Canadian flag on your blog somewhere!  ;) ;)

The Anti-Marketer (link)

Okay.  Paul has been going at it a lot longer than me.  But he's taken some time away and recently re-launched and re-focused his blog around disruption.  And he kicks it all off with an insightful and well-balanced post about Starbucks and the challenges they face.  Recommend stopping by if you haven't in a while.

Tip:  keep posting!

Tags: blogtipping

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Planners Untie and DeLurk!

I recently met up with one damn smart cookie from my past.  She is now a planner at a large agency in the local area.  I took her to Dangerous Dans here in Toronto.  I don't think she will ever be the same.

Interestingly, she has not taken to the blog-world yet.  So I told her I would share some of my recent favorites with her.  And now I've decided they are likely of value to many of my readers as well.  Here you go, Renee.

                                                                                               

	Everyone is talking about this "You" concept.  Time magazine being just the tip of the iceberg.  But have we really stopped to consider what it means when it comes to advertising?  Paul has.  Check out his awesome Mad Avenue Journal article.  I refuse to link directly to Madison Avenue as they don't allow commenting or conversations.  Sucky.
	I can't even fathom speaking about planning without a link to the insatiable Russell Davies.  If you are a planner and haven't checked out his planner wiki, then... then... yer lame!
	Okay.  Co-Creation is the shits.  It's that simple.  I've written about this before.  But now I just learned that there is a wiki where you can see the samples from the co-creation manifesto and even add in details!
	Finally. The myths of Loyalty. Does it really cost more to acquire a new customer than keep an existing one?  Ipsos Loyalty aims to bust a lot of common loyalty myths.  How much does acquiring new customers really cost vs. retaining existing ones?

Did I miss anything?  I know I have a bunch of you planners out there.  Time to delurk and share some resources!  Or punch your blog!  No shyness allowed.  You work in advertising!  ;)

Tags: You Generation, Planning, Co-Creation, Loyalty Myths

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links for 2007-02-15

• The Byline Group | How A Communications Audit Can Make Your Clients Look Like They Sound And Act Like They Mean It
  Eric Swartz's wonderful and insightful writeup on a branding communication audit. Complete with questions and approach.
  (tags: communications, communication audit, brand strategy)

Links for 6 Oct 06

• Change The Statistics
  "Viral" campaign to motivate some of the 38 million women who do not get mammograms to get one. You take a pledge online and your photos rotate through Times Square. No strong blog tools or presence. Too bad.
• Pink for October
  Here is a campaign that totally gets the long tail of digital distribution. Over 500 blogs have adopted the campaign creating quite a buzz. Many thanks to the Kate'ster for her rant that raised this to my attention.
• There are 42 different sphincters in the human body
  Don't ask. But the fact that I even know this proves the power of wikipedia to invade my world at work. Our office manager wins the bet for anyone who is interested. The link is provided in the title for any body trivia hounds.