As a follow-up to Monday's post, from the sublime to the ridiculous, here's yet another product that's undergone a colorful, non-traditional re-design.
From the mad mind and majestic hands of illustrator supreme Nate Williams comes this packaging for, well...dog poop bags.
Silly? Foolish? Unnecessary? Perhaps...
But if dogshit bags can take so well to a striking makeover, so can anything you or I make to make our living.
Thanks again Fitzy, and congrats to the folks at Olive Green Dog for this (pronounce carefully!) initiative.
Here's yet another example of "Use Virgin Contact Lenses," one of my favorite Surprise-generating tactics outlined in my oft-mentioned Pow! book (actually, they're all my favorites; like my kids, I love all my Surprise-generating tactics equally, but I digress...).
So, we all know that Fire Extinguishers must stand out. Their visibility is crucial when there's an inferno raging, and having them seamlessly blend into their surroundings would substantially defeat their purpose.
But why do they have to be red, or white, or any one color?
Such is the "see things again for the first time" breakthrough from Fire Design, a French company whose extinguishing creations stay true to the crucial "Hey, I'm Over Here!" necessity of the product, but re-write the rules of how to stand out.
Check this out, and think of how other such products can benefit from an Virgin Contact Lens viewpoint (like a smoke detector in the shape of a nose, or painted with huge, inhaling lips...but I digress again):
Collect 'em all! And thanks, Fitzy!
Been sitting on this one for a while, discovering it in April--in all
places!--amongst handset manufacturers and mobile media publishers at
the semi-annual CTIA telecom/internet conference.
Incongruous positioning aside,this is either one of the world's most brilliant innovations, or one of its most crass and idiotic (would've leaned heavily on the idiotic side but given the influence of Joshua Cooper Ramo's "The Age of the Unthinkable," I'm now perplexedly hovering in the middle):
The digitalcig promises "all of the pleasures of smoking wihout all the problems," namely open flame, smoke, carcinogens and stares from people like me as one pollutes my environs. It's the Beatlemania of the smoker's world--No Tobacco, Just an Incredible Simulation! (To answer the curious, the product creates a water vapor and mixes it with nicotine for a smoker's rush.)
Now, I'm an anti-smoker and dislike everything big tobacco stands for. I unfortunately know how even one cigarette can screw up the most pastoral scene (case in point--while taking my dogs on a crisp late night walk last week, some guy walking his dog a block in front of me was puffing away, and the smoke overpowered all other--and I mean ALL other--scents for the entire walk).
But I also know that to many, smoking is their life's pleasure. Some--most I'll reckon--are also hooked, which is a shame, but a reality. NJOY may be the more-than-reasonable alternative.
So...wacky gimmick, or a puffer's version of the electric car?
Put that in your pipe and smoke it.
Well, I wasn't delusional, nor was it an April Fool's Day joke. Just found out that the segment I taped for the Late Late Show on April 1 will air this Tuesday, May 12. I figure there may be more than a few people tuning in--model Paulina Porizkova is the main guest.
While some of you FOPs followed the escapade via my Tweets that day on Twitter (as if people "Tweet" anywhere else), here are a couple of other behind-the-scenes insights accompanied by these superb photos from celebrity portrait photog Francis Specker.
First of all, I must admit that--despite my wardrobe--my appearance was somewhat subdued and understated throughout the entire seven-minute sit-down (and when I say seven minutes, I mean seven--there was a timer that read 6:59 the second I turned the corner from backstage onto the set).
I had a few Surprises up my sleeve, but Craig was so over-the-top on his introduction of yours truly (repeatedly flinging the book directly into the camera lens and shouting "Pow!", see below), any craziness on my part would be construed as overkill. A quiet Andy? Perhaps that was the greatest Surprise of all...
Given that he kept the book on his desk throughout the interview, read from it, showed pictures from it, well...how could I possibly out-promote that? I simply answered his questions, reminisced about times we spent together...and cringed when I realized that I had left my fly open (just before going on stage, I debated whether to enjoy a last-minute pee, or let the bladder tension keep me on edge throughout the seven minutes. In retrospect, perhaps I should've held it in...).
Craig's guest who taped immediately prior to me was actress Jennifer Tilly. And speaking about "over-the-top," it was a miracle that perky, bouncy Jenn managed to stay within hers for a full seven minutes.
Craig couldn't help but fixate on her cleavage (to see why, look to your left), a valley of puffy, undulating flesh which would've sent his show directly to pay cable had it plunged a millimeter lower.
Following her, what I thought of doing was stuffing my shirt to mountainous proportions for my walk-on, which I think would've brought down the house...but would've also been irrelevant to a TV audience since our air-dates were weeks apart. Damn that time delay!
One of Craig Ferguson's trademarks is the hand-written note he leaves in each guest's dressing room prior to their appearance. Mine read (and I quote):
Somehow, I don't think he wrote the same thing to Reverend Desmond Tutu, but then again, that's the liberty you can take with someone who you know for over 20 years.
*********************
Ever wonder what goes on just before someone goes on? About a minute before, you get a knock on your dressing room door (mine came from Jeff, the show's guest-relations guru) and you're met by your segment producer (mine was the ageless, petite Lisa Ammerman).
In a scene reminiscent of The Green Mile, you walk down a corridor to the back of the studio, where you wait on a painted yellow line amongst various electronic gear, wires, ladders and gaffer tape. Just before he introduced me, Craig bounded backstage, gave me a hug and said "This is gonna be a surreal moment for both of us." Seconds later, he was jabbing the camera with my book...and then I heard my name called.
Have to say that I’ve been enjoying the romp through Alan Webber’s book “Rules of Thumb.” Ostensibly, the co-founder of Fast Company sliced up his reams of real-life wisdom (or “Truths,” as he calls ‘em) into 52 segments so that they can be digested one-per-week for a year, but paraphrasing that classic Lay’s Potato Chips challenge, betcha can’t read just one. I defy you to put the book down without plowing through six or seven of said “Truths” at one sitting.
Webber writes authoritatively and accessibly, delivering the goods in a friendly yet comprehensive manner. No wonder Fast Company changed the way a new generation took to, and understood, business. Frankly, given how much I’ve learned from the mag over the years, “reviewing” Webber’s book feels more like evaluating one of my favorite profs.
While much of what Webber writes is common sense, the accompanying anecdotes, usually star-studded with corporate giants or their leaders, adds luster to his claims. And the problem with common sense is that we sadly tend to forget it before acting on it, so a refresher every now and then is always welcome.
I still read, and enjoy, Fast Company on a regular basis. But after reading “Rules of Thumb,” I realize that the voice that was Webber’s is blatantly missing from his baby.
And how can I not love a book with these words of wisdom:
Wish I had been able to quote that in my book…
The ElevenForty Company of Edinburgh make some Surprisingly outlandish products, including custom cufflinks featuring left and right three-dimensional profiles of you and/or your loved ones (even your dogs!). These days, the buzz is all about the Opus, the world's most expensive table football game ("Foosball" for us here in North America), handcrafted in etched glass, stainless steel and your choice of precious woods.
What's MORE, given the company's Doppelganger technology, ElevenForty can customize your team to include family, friends, celebs, you name it, as long as you provide a half-decent photo to use as a reference.
But what's MOST, is the special edition "Good vs. Evil" Opus being sold exclusively by the site 20Ltd. (an old fave here at Surprise Central). For THAT edition, the company has drafted a line-up of do-gooders and the dastardly to engage in the eternal struggle between what's right and what's wrong.
Kicking for the baddies are SOBs like Lucifer, Vlad the Impaler, Pol Pot, Adolf Hitler, Caligula, Jack the Ripper and Lady MacBeth, while Mother Theresa, Ghandi, Mary Poppins, Flash Gordon, God and Santa Claus are part of theline up for the hallowed and haloed.
At 17,000 British Pounds, this game ain't for everyone, but if one could "fix" the matches so that the good guys always win, it may be worth it, if only for the benefit of our collective psyches.
This kinda goes against the grain because it's being telegraphed so far in advance, but after seeing his movie being pirated and previewed, Gavin Hood, director of the upcoming X-Men Origins: Wolverine, is using the Time-Bombing technique to drum up attention.
Says he of his film that opens next week:
Find out more and follow the story on Brent Sprecher's ComicBookMovie.com. Please Lord, don't let the Surprise be a Hugh Jackman musical number in top hat, tails and claws...
Most FOPs know that I’m no fan of April Fool’s Day, but the folks at Airborne took advantage of the serendipitous timing of the day with the opening of the Wireless Industry’s semi-annual CTIA conference to pull off another one of our major “What Will They Think of Next?!” Pow! operations.
Here was the plan—parodying the sponsorship overload of most such conferences, we printed up 1,000 stickers proclaiming Airborne Mobile to be the official sponsor of the event’s elevators, bathroom breaks, shoeshine stands, garbage cans, coffee carts…even all the event’s signage itself. The stickers were bold, colorful and impossible to miss. They were also backed by easy-to-remove adhesive, so we wouldn’t get busted for vandalizing property. Here's one:
To cut as wide a swath as possible, we also printed up generic stickers with blank space so we could customize with a Sharpie as we went along (a la “This Escalator Sponsored by Airborne Mobile” and “This Water Cooler Sponsored by Airborne Mobile”). No inanimate object could escape our whirlwind. Check out a couple more pix, and keep reading after ‘em.
We did a dry run on March 31st, and it went like clockwork. Running a covert operation with four Airborne cohorts was a blast, the shoeshine people loved us (we gave ‘em each $20 to decorate their stands), and we watched with glee as our handiwork brought smiles to the faces of those who passed them by on the relatively quiet pre-conference day.
We were all set for full-press deployment the following morning. We were to gather at 8:00 a.m. on the official opening day of the conference (April 1) and plaster the place; a visually-explosive operation back-stopped by a hilarious press release that would hit the wire at 9:00 a.m., proclaiming Airborne as the new title sponsor of the entire CTIA conference (overshadowing giants like Microsoft, RIM, Samsung, Motorola and their brethren), and filled with made-up laudatory quotes attributed to the association’s CEO and President Steve Largent.
But then, just as I’m leaving the Convention Center for the day, someone asks me: “Did you hear what happened to Mark?”
Tragically, sadly, my friend Mark Desautels, the high-ranking CTIA exec who shepherded Airborne into the wireless space over a decade ago when we were a wobbly, 10-person start-up, had died late the day before of a massive heart attack while playing golf.
Despite months of planning, with only hours to go before pressing “Play,” there was to other choice—out of respect to Mark, his family, Steve Largent and CTIA, we aborted the operation and cancelled the press release.
The moral of the story? In business, in life, no matter what your plans, the only one that matters is to do the right thing. You can cross all your “t”s, dot all your “i”s, check and double-check, and sometimes your best laid plans have to be laid off due to circumstances beyond your control. While there was a very brief debate about us going ahead with the operation, we realized that the downside of being considered a bunch of insensitive idiots grossly outweighed any upside we could’ve mustered.
Desautels was a great man, with a history of successful lobbying for an industry he helped grow. A truly good-natured soul who would’ve roared at the sticker/sponsorship stunt, he is now linked to it, if only within the confines of this blog.
Mark, you will be missed. This one’s for you.
Given the fact that I perform numerous speeches and am called on for an equally-numerous amount of corporate presentations, I have become somewhat of a PowerPoint Improvement Junkie. I have to say quite unabashedly that my PowerPoints whup ass; they're bold, colorful and--naturally--Surprising. They sing, shout, entertain and explain.
But they are so because of my never-ending quest to make 'em better. I've read all the books, from Seth Godin's Really Bad PowerPoint to Garr Reynolds' Presentation Zen. And last week, I added Dan Ward's "Charts Are Cheap" to my list of learning.
Dan, a military technologist who knows a thing or two about efficiency, has cobbled together an elegantly simple, yet deeply profound, primer on simplicity. While it may be a tad "too black-and-white" for this wildly-hued blogger, the points Dan makes (including the one at right) are eye-opening and easy to adopt.
I could post this via SlideShare, but you'll miss the explanatory notes that add context and depth, so in a way to share the best of it with all of you, here's the process:
Much thanks, Dan!
Well, it's Thursday, so I suppose it's time for the perfunctory update on what's going on in the world of my upcoming (and we're talking days now) Pow! book.
First and foremost is the Pow! Manifesto now published and available for download (free of course) at ChangeThis.com. ChangeThis is one of the great sites on the web; it's the syllabus for a new-school university where some of the world's great thinkers, provocateurs and rabble-rousers lay down their thoughts in colorful, easy-to-digest PDF form. Last month alone debuted works by Martin (Buyology) Lindstrom, Marty Neumeier and the legendary Sir Ken Robinson.
This is another one of those places I used to frequent on a regular basis as a fervent fan and can't believe that I'm now actually part of.
While mine may look like all other ChangeThis documents, the Pow! Manifesto is (well, what did you expect?) a little different. While many authors excerpt their books to build their manifestii, or fill it with bright prose, I knew that neither would help me in my goal to have a top-10 downloaded ChangeThis manifesto.
That's why I came up with a brand new, fully original piece: an apocalyptic, illustrated vision entitled "A WORLD WITHOUT SURPRISE"...written as--wait for it!--a poem. I hope you like it...and pass it on.
You can download it by clicking here.
Second, and equally as foremost, is my new, expanded and very loud website, masterfully designed by Scott Brooks, a colleague at Airborne Mobile. Find it at andynulman.com (there's a link to this here blog, which can still be accessed directly with the clear yet unwieldy URL powrightbetweentheeyes.com):
Well this indeed makes my weekend--an endorsement for Pow! from Seth Godin:
Ever since I picked up a copy of his "Permission Marketing" at the St. John's airport over ten years ago, Seth has always been one of my major marketing inspirations, and a prime motivator in me wanting to write a book in the first place. Lord knows I sure have enough of his (i.e. all of 'em) in my library.
Honored...
The power of Pow! rears its head in some strange places.
Reading about the new Fox show "Lie To Me," I discovered that the lead character's ability to detect lies by "reading" suspects' faces is based upon the work of psychologist Dr. Paul Ekman, a Surprise Central hero due to his work in his groundbreaking book "Unmasking the Face" (which he wrote with Wallace Friesen).
In it, Ekman outlines that Surprise is one of the seven basic human facial expressions, and describes a tell-tale facial twinge called "The Surprise Brow" as:
Then again, perhaps I shouldn't be shocked at Ekman's influence on the show since one of its producers, the legendary Brian Grazer, is another Surprise Central fave due to his propensity of using the time-honored Surprise Brow-generating tactic of Time-Bombing.
Wednesdays on Fox at 9:00. Enjoy!
The folks at 800 CEO-Read have been incredibly generous with me and my upcoming Pow! book...this is the least I can do in return.
First of all, an initiative that obviously warms the cockles of the hearts of everyone here at Surprise Central, is the company's MYSTERY BOX program, which bundles together three business books for only $30, and donates all the proceeds to the well-deserving Room To Read charity.
Important to note that these volumes ain't the dregs hauled out of the remainder bin; the box contains one title that either won (or made the shortlist for) the best book of 2008 in its category for the site's annual "Best Business Books of the Year" competition ; the other two were titles that were submitted for the awards. Over and above, each bundle will include "In The Books," 800 CEO-Read's annual overview of bizbooks. And to top it all off, THEY pay the shipping.
How can you resist? Order yours now by clicking this.
And in an effort to promote its upcoming book "The 100 Best Business Books of All Time," the 800 CEO-Readers have launched a site where people like you and me can tell their personal stories of business books that have left an indelible influential mark on their psyches and souls, and why. Tell your story by visiting MyFavoriteBizBook.com; by the way, this was mine.
(Uh, P.S. to all you FOPs out there...I still don't see Pow! on the list...)
Well, the third installment of the Pow! video series is up on 800 CEO Read, and this one makes like Marlon Brando in The Godfather.
In other words, I'm making you an offer you can't refuse:
Yup. That simple.
Kinda. Here are the very simple rules of the game:
Jeez, you don't even have to have a business blog, you don't have to agree to kiss butt and review it...ya just have to want to actually read the thing!
So there you do. That's it. No tricks, no strings. 200 free books for bloggers.
It's that easy...
Or could there be, perhaps, maybe, something up my sleeve?
You can read this post's title two ways, and both would be considered correct--contractions of Obama and Art, as well as Obama and Mart.
As the 44th President prepares to take his most historic oath tomorrow, the worlds of commerce and content are abuzz with creations that range from the sorry (like Ashford and Simpson's "Solid As Barack," the unfortunate Martine-enraging remake of "Solid As a Rock") to the inspired.
In the latter category is Obamicon.Me, a site set up by Paste Magazine, where plebes like you and me can have our faces transferred into the inspired Shepard Fairey-iconic image that has adorned millions of posters and t-shirts. Here's what it did for yours truly...uh, do I get your vote?
Well, the votes have been tabulated and the results of the 800 CEO-Read video campaign to choose the author photo for my upcoming Pow! book are a landslide, with close to 60% voting for the eventual winner.
The final tally:
And the winner, the "Split Personality" Photo #3:
Thanks to all who voted, and look for the above in my back pages in bookstores everywhere next month.
The love continues over at 800 CEO-Read, the business book site that's premiering the five videos that Scott Brooks and I are doing to promote my oft-mentioned (and hopefully never forgotten) Pow! book. Millions of thanks again to Kate Mytty, Dylan Schleicher and Aaron Schliecher.
This one treads into dangerous territory by examining the relationship between authors and their author photos. Even better, it allows you to vote on one of three author photos I took with the madman named Stéphane Najman (that's him and me below, as well as a shot of one of the 100 or so times I had my make-up fixed). The mugshot that gets the most votes gets to be my official jacket flap photo when Wiley releases the book in February.
You can also see the first in the series by clicking HERE.
Enjoy, and please...send to a friend! Or two. Or two dozen.
One more remnant from last week's Sports Conference.
After getting off stage from my panel on mobile, the first person to approach me was one of my all-time heroes, NBA legend and jazz afficionado extraordinaire Kareem Abdul-Jabbar.
If things go well, Kareem and Airborne Mobile will find a way to work together (NDAs are in place!), but I think I may have to re-fit our boardroom with phone books for me to sit on during our brainstorm sessions.
Here's a iPhone snapshot of the momentous encouner, the meeting of giants! (P.S. I'm not saying that he's tall, but that's the sun shining top right. And no, I'm not on my knees.).
Well, close.
The people at 800-CEO-Read, the specialized homestead for business books on the Web, have been very kind to me and to my upcoming Pow! book, and have offered me five months of "behind the scenes/making of a business book" Guest Post promo on the company's influential Daily Blog.
But in true Pow! fashion, the company's dynamic duo of Aaron and Dylan Schleicher and faithful sidekick Kate Mytty threw me a challenge by saying: "Given the nature of your book, we expect it to be different from what anybody else has done."
Here we go again.
Well, the end result starts today, as 800-CEO-Read has posted the first of five Pow! Right Between The Eyes! videos. Each one focuses on a specific topic, and although kinda tongue-in-cheek, each has a serious underlying theme (hey, it still is a business book after all...). They're all homemade, written by yours truly and directed my Airborne Mobile's madly creative Scott Brooks (who designed the look of this here blog as well).
The first is about the pressure to have a gimmick to sell business books these days. So why are you still here? Click THIS and check out Video #1 right now.
I think so.
Okay, so it's no Sarah Palin goalie mask, but that big guy you see below is world-renowned pop artist Steve Kaufman and a jacket he hand-designed to coincide with the release of my Pow! book (yeah, I know, pre-orders here).
Steve has his own book coming out shortly (which you can preview here). Hmmmm...I wonder what I can design for him in return?
Given the 2008 Presidential race is now entering its final two weeks, expect the heat to turn up, more mud to be flung, more barbs to be slung...hence more need for protection.
That said, Pow! Right Between The Eyes and artist Frank Cipra are offering this custom-painted campaign trail mask to Republican VP candidate Sarah Palin at no charge, a gorgeous piece of headgear that can withstand even the most powerful Democratic shot. All her people have to do is tell us where to send it, and it's hers.
The mask is yet another masterpiece from Cipra, the incredibly talented designer who has created unique mask looks for countless NHL goalies like Curtis Joseph, Rick DiPietro, Jose Theodore, Grant Fuhr, Ron Hextall and dozens more. The right side is a portrait of the V.P. candidate (above), while the left side is her pit-bull alter-ego (seen below).
Don't wanna take sides, but let's just say that this would look great in the White House...or in the Governor's mansion in Alaska.
Ms. Palin, operators are standing by!
I really dig ChangeThis. While plenty other destinations on the net--including blogs such as this one--are places where great ideas are seeded and gain traction, ChangeThis packages these ideas into manifestos that are as enjoyable to look at as they are to read.
What's more, with retrospect, ChangeThis is tomorrow's business best-seller list today; authors like Chris Anderson (The Long Tail), Nassim Nicholas Taleb (The Black Swan) and Seth Godin (Tribes and just about everything else) have used the manifesto platform as the launchpad for their brain-shifting works. (Full disclosure: let's hope history repeats itself, as ChangeThis will be featuring my Pow! manifesto as an accompaniment to my book in February, 2009).
That said, I was particularly enamored with one of this month's manifestos--"I Am The Walrus: Lessons in Personal Branding by The Beatles" by Alan Parr and Karen Ansbaugh of the OpenSky Consortium. While some of their "lessons" are a little bit of a stretch, the overall result is charming and thought-provoking (a la "Leadership Secrets of Atilla The Hun" and "The Tao of Pooh"), and--on the 40th anniversary of the White Album--gives me another reason to call up the Fab Four on the ol' iPod.
The line that really--pardon the pun--struck a chord in their manifesto was the one that went:
As a long-time antagonist of cursed resumes (I used to deliver a speech to college students, which was actually turned into a TV series, both called "Throw Away Your Resume"), I was able to relate as we're in the midst of recruiting a P.R. intern at Airborne, and the CV flow is dreadful, dull, uninspiring and--given the fact that most are still coming in on paper--a crime against the environment.
While their point led in a different direction, Carr and Ansbaugh's manifesto rekindled my wish for a new resume, one that tells stories, uses photos, audio, video, tchotchkes--ANYTHING other than the dreaded "accomplishment list"--to sell a candidate. Welcome to the new millennium, almost a decade late.
Perhaps I'm aiming too high too soon, but what I did do was tell my colleague Shevaughn Battle to toss the pile she's already received into the recycling bin and then toss the candidates a resume challenge:
Let's see what we get.
In the meantime, I'm going to listen to The Beatles for inspiration. And I'm gonna start with "Paperback Writer."
One of the major mantras espoused ad nauseam here at Surprise Central is that
Ahh, the making of a book! After writing it, sending a few manuscripts out for review, re-reading and re-re-reading the document over and over, the collective wisdom seems to think that the market for the Pow! book is wider than the initially-contemplated "marketing folk" and their ilk.
That's good news, which reminds me of a great publishing joke:
Q: When does a business book become a non-fiction book?
A: When it is placed on the non-fiction shelf.
Well, with a philosophical makeover comes the inevitable physical one, so say hello to the NEW subtitle--Profiting From the Power of Surprise--and the NEW front face of POW! Right Between The Eyes!--The Book (and you can pre-order it right now to avoid the mad February rush!).
...this is what I'll name it:
From a recent trip to Coeur d'Alene, Idaho.
This month's Fast Company pays homage to great design and designers, with Marcel Wanders on the cover and colorful stories on Rhode Island School of Design's John Maeda, the eccentric Li Edelkoort and typeface provocateurs House Industries.
Here's someone they forgot:
Over in Brookline, Vermont, this offbeat artist creates the type of eye-popping, innovative American furniture not seen since the early days of Charles and Ray Eames. The pictures here speak way louder than words (the actual furniture raises the decibel level even further; I had the pleasure of laying on the Coin Couch and sitting on the remarkably comfortable Baby Jar Chair in a gallery in Santa Fe), but Swing's truly unique talent is best summarized by writer Michael Persson who said:
"Finding new shapes is like finding new riffs in rock ‘n’ roll. And yet, sitting in a piece of furniture created by Johnny Swing you realize that the song doesn’t always remain the same. Instead, what you are struck with is that new shapes feel as good as they look.
"The self-proclaimed 'junk rat' uses glass jars, coinage and car windshields to make chairs, couches, lounges and things that you can’t quite name. In design, or in Swing’s world of design, this simulation is known as repurposing: taking something that was and making it into something different that is. Such visual cannibalism is a philosophy extrapolated from the artist Marcel Duchamp and the topsy-turvy rationale of pop-aesthete Andy Warhol. For Swing, it’s a balancing act of function versus non-function. The trick is to make opposites attract."
It's a trick he performs brilliantly. This blog doesn't have the clout of Fast Company (well, not yet), but as much as I admire Marcel Wenders, Johnny Swing is Pow!'s cover boy. Check his stuff out:
Two mentions over the holiday weekend filled the Blackberry with email and kept the servers humming.
One saw Pow! cited by the omnipotent Mitch Joel as one of his "Five Blogs That Move The Needle" (and as complimentary as that was, even more so was seeing the other four I was grouped with). Click here to check out the entire post...and the other four.
The other was 12 years in the making, but a truly great Surprise. In 1996, when I was still CEO of the Just For Laughs Festival, I invited cartoonist Lynn Johnston to the event. We had great success with animators like Chuck Jones, Joseph Barbera (the second half of Hanna-Barbera) and Jay Ward (of Rocky & Bullwinkle fame), and since her comic strip "For Better or For Worse" was the most popular in North America, we figured she'd be a natural progression for our up-close-and-personal talk/Q&A sessions at the Gesu Theater.
Well, we were right. Crowds jammed the place in droves, and bestowed upon the quite flabbergasted Ms. Johnston with the type of treatment usually reserved for our mega-star Gala hosts of the era, like David Schwimmer, John Candy, Lily Tomlin or Kelsey Grammer.
Given the fact that I was producing a Showtime TV show for the event the night of her performances, I missed seeing her live, but couldn't miss her radiant aura when we met at the Delta Hotel later that evening. In appreciation for her Festival experience, she gave me a signed original strip, which hangs above the desk where I compose most Pow! posts.
But that's not all. It appears that Lynn's appreciation lasts long, as I witnessed on Sunday, with the panel at right...part of her "Farewell" wrap-up strip, which you can see in its entirety here.
Well, I guess it's really for real.
This taken from the John Wiley and Sons online advance catalog.
Instructors, prepare to evaluate!
And FOPs, get ready to assemble come February and rush this one up the best seller charts.
Until then, here's a sneak peek at the book's cover.
Subtle and understated...just like its author ;)
When you're driving to work this morning, or back home later today, check out the overpasses you, well, pass under. Now, I don't know where you live, but doing my best Nostradamus (or worst Kreskin), I'll bet that your passes are listless, concrete and grey. If they have any color at all, it's due to the work of a daring graffiti defacer, or of rust.
Unless, of course, you live in Santa Fe. On my recent sojourn there, I was taken by the attention to detail and style the city puts into most everything...including its highway overpasses. Check these out:
Yes, they cost a few bucks more. And yes, the money could be spent elsewhere. But how do you measure the value of converting urban blight into urban art? And what type of image does that convey versus the usual cracking cement?
Today's mission--think of something on your person, or in your business, that is industrially lackluster and serially ignored...and find a way to make it sing.
Well, the Olympics are over, and in spite of the eye-searing Opening and Closing ceremonies and heroics from humanomachines like Michael Phelps and Usain Bolt, the unanimous fave amongst those who inhabit Surprise Central is Canadian longjumper Tabia Charles. That's her looking at this.
Now Tabia didn't win any medals, in fact, she came in 10th in the long jump finals (slightly behind Carolina Kluft of long jump powerhouse Sweden), but the way in which she came in 10th endeared her to all who make it their business to make others stand out in their fields.
Now some athletes, like the aforementioned swimming and running phenoms, are destined for glory. Others, despite trying their damndest and giving their all, will see hues of gold or silver only in the technicolor of their dreams.
And then there's Tabia. Realist. Opportunist. Like Phelps, she used the Olympic Games as the springboard to her future. But she didn't do it with medals; she did it with fishnet and hairtint.
You couldn't miss Tabia on the field. She wasn't the best athlete, or the hottest "sex symbol" attracting gaggles of horny photographers, but man, she was an eye magnet. Fishnet stocking on one leg. Rhianna-like hair bob that made the most out of the HD telecast. Natural post-Olympic ambition--model and fashion designer. As she told reporter Rob Vanstone:
"About three years ago, my brother was like, ‘Tab, man, if you can make it to the Olympics and do your thing there and people see you, that opens so many doors.’
"I figure why not come out here and show them my trends? So when I do come out with a fashion line, they’ll be like, ‘Oh, that’s Tabia Charles’s stuff !’ That’s the whole goal: To make it in this aspect. This will open so many doors for me.
"My boyfriend was like, ‘Tab, go all out. Why not? You never know what can happen."
Well, here's what I hope happens--when Bolt and Phelps are hobbling along the lecture or coaching circuit, I hope Tabia Charles is the new Donna Karan or Coco Chanel, following her creations down runways all over the fashion world.
That, my friends, would be the ultimate long jump.
I've always dug Stephan Pastis and his very popular comic strip "Pearls Before Swine," so while in the process of writing my Pow! book for John Wiley and Sons (out in February...but you guys know all that by now), I reached out to his syndicate for the rights to reprint a very telling Sunday panel of his in said book. I spoke to a very accommodating United Media, we did the deal in about a week for a price I can afford, and everyone's happy.
So, the scene shifts to me over last weekend as I stealthily stake out my favorite bookstores to dream up with innovative ways to market the Pow! book, and as I slink through the Humor section, I run face-forward into a shelf of Pastis's "Pearls" treasuries. Seeing this as some sort of divine intervention and good karma, I pick up his most recent, "The Crass Menagerie."
Good move.
Some cartoonists are best consumed in eye-dropper intervals (hence the standard daily dose, or weekly, in the case of Berkeley Breathed), and the onslaught of a compendium of their work can be overwhelming. It's just the opposite with Pastis and Pearls, where his brilliance and sense of adventure seem to be best appreciated in bulk as the outlandish story lines and characters bounce against each other and develop. (An added bonus is the DVD-like commentary by the artist on most of the strips, which gives insight into the thought process, unveils inside secrets and characters, and showcases Pastis's wicked, self-deprecating sense of humor.)
Best of all, I've seem to have found a kindred spirit. Pastis Surprises his readers by daringly toying with convention, not an easy feat on the very conservative comics pages. He has his characters inhabit other strips (like "The Family Circus," "Cathy" and "Baby Blues"), kill other characters while there (like Jeremy from "Zits"), and gets Dali-esque by running his strip upside down, sideways and even perpendicular, with equally convention-bending results (my favorite line of the upside down-strip is when Rat says: "Right now, it appears I'm looking up Blondie's dress.") As Pastis himself says in the book:
"I think every now and then it's a
good idea to Surprise readers with strips that don't match the normal tone of the comic. I believe that switching up tone every now and then helps keep the strip from becoming predictable."
So here's what I think--I may be partial after enjoying his book so much, but this guy has got to go further than the perfunctory books, mugs and t-shirts. If a British noodle snack can become a musical (see Tuesday's post), then so can Rat, Pig, Goat Zebra and the Fraternity of Crocodiles.
Off to New York for a big meeting with Airborne's faithful giant client Verizon Wireless, but I promised a couple more Just For Laughs pix, and here they are. Four things to note before, though:
Beverage cans and soft drink bottles, long considered an eyesore by the side of the road or source of revenue for the homeless, have become the new fashion statement.
Coca-Cola just won a prestigious Golden Lion in Cannes (how apropos!) for its newly-designed aluminum bottle (that's them there at right), Pepsi is now pouring from 35 different eye-poppin' can creations, and over the course of this year, two beer companies will be packaging their brew in camouflage cans, ostensibly to appeal to the 65 million outdoorsmen (and women) who like to match their wardrobe while they hunt, fish, shoot and binge drink. This summer, Busch and Busch Light will be available in underbrush tones of green and muted brown, with Miller's "Camo Can" taking on similar attributes starting in October.
All this seems to be a natural progression as food packaging is becoming everything from a purveyor of poetry and motivation (Starbucks cups), promotional messaging and couponing (Burger King) to a broadcast medium in its own right (Coke's veiled threat to sell ads on its cans and bottles due to their massive international exposure).
Back to the brew for a second. While the aesthetics are indeed unique, methinks that perhaps they, too are just camouflaging the brewers' more insidious ulterior motive. Just think of the additional sales after the aforementioned outdoorsy types lay down their six-packs in the open bush...and then, no matter how hard they look, can't find them.
Much was made last week about Microsoft's announcement of "Paid Search," albeit inverting the funnel (to use a Seth Godinism) and paying the searchers once they become buyers.
An obvious ploy to steal some thunder (and traffic, and eventually, revenue) from Google, Microsoft's search idea is a nice twist, but I don't know how excited folks are gonna get jumping through hoops and climbing somewhat rickety ladders to save a couple of bucks from some participating sites. There's a lot of variables at work here; too many, perhaps, to make us wanna jump and shout for joy.
Methinks the future of search--perhaps of many standardized, commoditized activities--can be better crystal balled by downloading an app called PicLens.
PicLens is part of the CoolIris group, which I stumbled upon while searching (there's that word again) for an in-browser preview program now that Browster has gone to the Web 2.0 graveyard. I dig their preview program, but I'm enamored with PicLens, which I believe is the beginning of the future of browsing.
Here's why:
IT'S FUN!
Right now, it works only (only!) for image/photo, video and social sites like flickr, Photobucket, YouTube, Google Image Search, Facebook, MySpace and the like, but what a ride! Instead of pages upon pages of flat squares, PicLens converts the found visuals into a 3D-like wall, which you whip across and up & down with your mouse. Not only is the effect efficient and fast, but the experience is such a blast, you almost forget why you came there in the first place.
Making the mundane fun. Making a chore into play. Way more appealing to us at Surprise Central than waiting for a refund from Redmond.
Lemme know what you think once you find it.
Ah, the ingenuity of the Great White North rears it head once again!
Taking the Threadless "community t-shirt aspect" and bringing a face to it is Toronto-based Joy Apparel, who urge you to "wear the world on your heart."
Actually, it's way more interesting than that. What these guys do is sell you a t-shirt with a hand-drawn portrait of a random stranger on it (these portraits are very well done, and well worth wearing).
To keep the community growing, at the time of your order, you upload your own headshot, which is converted into a hand-drawn portrait, which is then put on the t-shirt that some other random stranger buys. And then...well, you get the drill. (By the way, that's Kristina Ferraro above and my namesake, Lucious Andy, below.)
What makes this even more endearing is that Jeff Woodrow, who conceived this idea, donates 5% of profits to a different charity every month, and a la Sally Struthers, packs each t-shirt with a card that tells you all about the person emblazoned on your (sweatshop-free!) garment.
Great concept, and indeed spreads the warmth, but I think that Jeff's only scratching the surface with this one. Just think what could be done if you could harness the process for mass gatherings of people where t-shirts are sold, a la music festivals, political rallyes or street parties. The meet-and-greets could be more entertaining than the events themselves.
Stand out or step back.
That's always been a motto of some sorts around Surprise Central. It's been the subject of many a blog posting here, like this one, and these two about my beloved Corvette (which celebrates its seasonal, coming-out-of-storage party this week).
And now, there's a book about it.
It's called Step Into The Spotlight, A Guide To Getting Noticed and it's sparkingly-written by a woman who goes by the mono-moniker Tsufit.
A former Dean's List litigation lawyer, Tsufit cast off her professional shackles and followed her passion into the world of showbiz. She did stand-up comedy, acted, recorded a CD before settling into her current passion of corporate coaching, saying (and I love this) "I show business how to use show business to get business."
The book is a primer on making noise and attracting eyeballs and ears to you and/or your message, and is highly endorsed by yours truly. You can't expect Pow! if you don't stand out; there's no Surprise by blending in.
And if you can muster up about one-100th of the chutzpah that Tsufit oozes, you'll be a magnet for attention. Check her out, and buy the book, by clicking here.
A couple of years ago, I spoke at a conference at Walt Disney World, and taking advantage of the free passes given to speakers, I head over to the MGM park to try out the Aerosmith Rock N' Rollercoaster. Now, I'm a big fan of Aerosmith, and admit the coaster was a blast, but other than the waiting-in-line preamble, the ride really had nothing to do with the band.
Cut to Led Zeppelin--the Ride, which has got to be the star attraction of the currently-in-preview but soon-to-open Hard Rock Park in Myrtle Beach, South Carolina. With six loops, a top speed of 65 miles per hour (!!!) and climbing 15 stories high, this coaster's about as unpredictable and wild as John "Bonzo" Bonham after a long-weekend bender. That's it below.
But what makes the ride truly Pow!erful is the way it's action is actually choreographed to the tune "Whole Lotta Love." Like the seats at The Beatles' Love show in Vegas, each coaster car is equipped with a sound system that blasts the song through you. Sounds nuts, and rock 'n' roll purists are spinning in their graves, but if the "simulation video" (no direct link; go to the Rides link on the site's main page and click on Led Zep) is any indication, this could be the start of whole new way to experience music.
No matter what, after seeing the vid/riding the ride, you'll never hear the line "Way down inside, woman, you need...Looohhhvvvvve!" the same way again.
Coming soon to the Hard Rock Park: Marilyn Manson--The Dark Ride, Elton John--The Merry-Go-Round, The Eagles--The Massage Chair and Elvis--The Snack Bar.
