HOPE

ARE YOU A LINCH-PIN?

Manifesto from Seth Godin. This is the essence of  the real movers of today. All artists at heart using emotional passion, belief and going against old conventions to do what you feel is right. Each day, at work, at play. Are YOU a linch-pin? maybe you’ll feel like being one after reading this.

Do something meaningful

Ok, i’m going through the phase of disillusionment with the ad industry. All the brains, skill and passion with late nights and never-die attitudes… to sell diapers, cereals, cars, soda………  THINGS. It’s always about things.

Here’s the real stuff. Selling hope. A project done by Broken City Lab for Windsor ( across the river from Detroit, ex industrial land)  http://www.brokencitylab.org/cross-border-communication/ ( beware their site looks like they’re selling media supply… they need a less technical webwriter) They call this disruption and intervention. I can’t agree less. It’s work with soul.

 

Project for Windsor – effort to save the city and create inertia after it’s heavy reliance as an industrial town for Chrysler.

 

‘YOU ARE AMAZING’… cars driving by get a bit of positivity – up for only 24 hours before it was brought down.

This has charm. Even more so because it’s a non-permanent message. Made from ice-blocks.

The citizens of Windsor are really getting  pure top grade class communication – purely for them where accepting the messages will hopefully give them the push in momentum they need.

INSTINCTIVENESS

By permission from veer.com Excellent site for inspiration.

Everyone has instincts. Just a matter of how often they come, how strong they are.

Instinct = perception, intuition, gut feel, senses, a strong feeling that you cannot backtrack to logical facts on the reason why. It just is.

In the prehistoric world, instinct was used for survival. To know when to strike in hunting, to know how to defend when being hunted. To smell the weather and know what to prepare for.

 Today, instinct is even more precious. In BLINK ( the book that hits unnecessary research down used to justify a decision/ conclusion), Malcolm Gladwell tells a true story of how The Getty Museum, after 14 months of research and money spent to check the facts and validity of a Greek statue ‘kourous’ almost paid USD10million for a fake. Despite all the correct scientific analytical validation done by legal documentation and scientific experimentation, the art curators took one look at it and felt it wasn’t right.  One curator couldn’t explain why she said it’s just not right.  Another looked at it and the first word that came into his head was “fresh” – which you don’t say when you see a statue from the 6^th century BC. Another said he felt there was a glass between him and the statue, as if it wasn’t real or it was trying to hide something. 

They all felt their instincts within a blink of the eye (therefore the book title: Blink) And then it was discovered the statue was a forgery – done in the 1980s in Rome. It shouldn’t have taken them 14 months to discover that.  

As a planner in the marketing world, i’ve seen the most successful marketing directors go on the path of success or failure.. all dependant on whether they have the marketing instinct. Companies that rely on unnecessary countless research on consumers with less specific briefs to get an answer on what product to launch, how to launch it, etc.. are really using all their money to go round the mulberry bush. While their competitors beat them to the chase and launch the right product faster.

I’ve seen clients who know their instincts so well they can tell the right decision from a taste, a blink or hearing an answer to a question.

I’ve seen 8 months of validation by research to test what they’ve been told.

I’ve seen a company that refused to trust a human insight given on urban Muslim women and their insecurities at having to handle husband, work, children and themselves until they stumble upon it again by research after one and a half years, where the opportunity flew by.

I still see examples today where people want facts, logical facts to explain a decision.

We all use our internal computer in our brains, that come from the gift of being a human being. To be able to think, feel, sense and perceive. We collect all sorts of data and information and store it somewhere in our brain. Being instinctive means you naturally pull out data from all parts – not necessarily from the same compartment that we normally neatly store it in.

Being instinctive means you are using more of your brain. And it doesn’t mean you have to try and not trust things you cannot explain.

Trust your instincts. I’ll continue to use mine, it’s served me well.  (As tiring as it may be sometimes around people who need validation.) Btw – this means trusting people who you think have instincts if yours isn’t strong enough – yet.

Yasmin Ahmad

Everyone in advertising in Asia and art film goers around the world know her. This is a short ode to her. Her passing last Saturday was a shock to all. Looking back, it was as if she knew her life would be short. And she made the most of it. At 51 years, Yasmin left us last week. She broke barriers of race, culture and age through her ads and film. She had that wonderful, unique way of being able to communicate a feeling. The ability to bring to life things that we can’t put in words. And make us wonder and think about our own lives. She had guts. She was more woman than any woman in the business world. She used it. She knew her worth. She started off as someone else and ended up being someone so big, her past is part of her legacy. I joined my first ad agency because of her. If you don’t know her, please look her up.

A beautiful mind to marriage

De bono. A marvel of today’s wisdom. I decided to leave uni in the US when i saw the appalling level of the teaching during philosophy 101. De bono wasn’t discussed then. First open topic of discussion was homosexuality and the professor just guffawed along with the ROTC guys over a sexual act ( perhaps mr. professor was trying to blend in).

I’m picking out things from his book that hit me like a ton of bricks. Thought i should share it out. Give you the impact of brick hitting too. I’ll try to be in context. Though like he says, conversation should be a dance of thoughts. I see it as one step adds to another step that forms a new movement of dance.

He mentions; suppose there is a suggestion of marriage being a 5 year contract. Provision for children born during the 5 years. Renewable at the end if both parties so wish. Those in a happy marriage would be ever ready to renew the contract. Those not happy have a way out. Judgement depends on personal values and experience. ( De Bono is giving this as an example to showcase how values determine judgement. So please don’t berate him for this, you can berate me instead since i’m the one bringing it out of it’s context now)

For those married, you know your experiences. And your thoughts. Let’s put another level on it. If life is about living it in the best quality, and in relationships we talk of giving the best and highest form of love to those you love, would living in a unhappy situation be the best way for the receiving end after 5 years if the marriage continued?

I’m saying I think it’s a great brick hitting thought. That perhaps marriage could be a 5 year contract. Makes each partner want to work their best throughout everyday for 5 years. Because this may be all they’ve got. Same thing with companies and employees. When employees feel they have a lifelong guaranteed position in the company, who cares about delivering or performing for tomorrow? The core driver: Motivation. 5 years is a great motivation to living it pure and good in a human relationship.

By the way, my employment contracts  are 2 years. My motivation is on super speed mode. hah.

Leverage

Learnings for a dream team. A set of people with various, diverse characteristics any successful group, company, team should have to advance them further.

Back when Charlie’s Angels had 3bombshells with specific roles:-1 nerdish thinker ( sorry kate jackson fans), 1 seductress, 1 ditzy bimbo and the A-team enlarged that a cult groupie of men with their own designated roles, Leverage the tv series today i think is great. Diverse, contrasting roles for each of the 5 cast team. Just add 1 mastermind, 1 seductress, 1 angry daredevil, 1 no nonsense implementor, 1 rational synergizer.

A dream team to have in any group. United Nations could think about this one. World Forums too. Then things really start moving.