Proof “Know Me” Campaign

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We took a very different direction on this introductory video for the Proof suite of software products. Proof is based on matching cookies and device IDs to a) a media campaign of any kind and b) Lucid’s huge pool of survey respondents. It reveals a picture of the audience that marketers have historically not been able to see.
I thought it would be interesting to work off the idea that we don’t know much about other people, and that as you get to know someone they gradually reveal small things about themselves that add up to a greater whole.

Accordion, St. Francis Madera School for the Blind

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This photograph was taken in Madera, Soroti, Uganda at an extraordinary school run by and housing extraordinary people.
The visually impaired in East Africa don’t have a lot of choices and often face abandonment or worse. St. Francis is a boarding school by necessity. One of the ways the kids (ranging from 3 to late teens) expand their creativity, learn teamwork, blow off steam, and generally have fun is through the school band.
If you’d like to know more about the school and what it needs, send me a note.

The Janoskians Get Caked

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One of my favorite content pieces from the team this year.

 

The North Face goes experiential…and the bottom drops out

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Awesome instore activation from The North Face Korea. What will a customer do when the floor literally disappears? Luckily there’s a climbing wall…it’s North Face, after all.

 

Grow your own: data fluency in your team

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“You want to cultivate internal capability, not just hire it” – Michael Schrage in HBR on data fluency in a team.

You don’t want the “analytics person” to be the only one on the team who speaks the language.

Stop Searching for That Elusive Data Scientist

No Cameras Allowed

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See “No Cameras Allowed” by Marcus Haney (the dude who did “Connaroo – How Broke Kids Do Bonnaroo”). It captures the essence of the live music experience. Like Ferris Bueller at a festival. This is the original trailer before MTV picked up rights. If it disappears off the interwebs, let me know 😉

 

Respond and care

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Two underrated actions/abilities that will take you very far in business, just as in life: responsiveness and caring.
Did you let someone know you heard them?
And does it matter to you that there’s a problem to be solved?
Say yes to both.

Creativity is a product of the desire to be helpful

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“Creativity is a product of the desire to be helpful: help make it better, help make it faster, help make it more beautiful, help make it simpler.” – Cary Paik, architect

This is one of the most beautiful, and to me accurate, definitions of creativity I’ve ever come across.

Full video on creativity and business from the incredible C2MTL conference:

Cover photo courtesy of Sid Lee.

Walking the wire
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You have to make a reaction. You have to surprise. You have to astonish yourself. Be always on a wire, a thread. – Jean-Louis Dumas of Hermès

You can’t create if you’re focused on survival

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One of the principles of microfinance is that, by extending credit, microlenders allow people to get out of a bare-survival relationship with moneylenders: a situation where subsistence is all that’s achievable. This blocks entrepreneurship. Extending credit allows the “breathing room” for a human being to actually start a business and grow it. This is why organizations like Kiva are so powerful in effecting change.

Too often people in business box themselves into a survival situation. In a highly political and challenged corporate environment, many times the only way to survive is not to stick your head above the waves. Do what’s expected; please the right people; and when the next round of cuts comes you will be ‘safe”. (This, by the way, being one of the worst definitions of “safe” I have ever heard.)

In a survival situation there is no room for creation. Career survivalists don’t make great things. Disruption could get them in trouble. They huddle in the bunker waiting for the loud noises to stop.

Don’t be a survivalist when you have the precious privilege and freedom to create change.