February 10th, 2010
A node is a point where many points meet. While this may seem like a linchpin, a supernode connects seemingly disparate topics and brings those groups together in a new group.
Supernodes can be found in many different areas – people, places and things. One place that’s a supernode is Rice.
Rice is a small chain restaurant in NYC known for their varied dishes. All of the dishes center on – you guessed it – rice. What makes this important is that instead of focusing on the traditional way of dining based on a culture (Italian) or a food (cupcakes) they unify multiple cultures around a single ingredient.
What comes from this is a new and unique experience. Your taste buds are allowed to intermingle many different flavors at once that they may have not been privvy to before. The conversation that’s created around the supernode is priceless. That’s what a supernode does.
A supernode is a trailblazer more often than not. A supernode also may take center stage because of the sheer fact that it is center and a point of congregation. What the supernode does best naturally is act as a conduit for many different streams to converge. It allows the different nodes to be on center stage and come together because it is by nature the center.
So what does all this mean to you? These supernodes are changing reality. We’re all more enriched and emboldened because of them. They turn the impossible into I’m possible.
Tags: flavors, linchpin, sheer fact, supernode, taste buds
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February 9th, 2010
Limitations are just a poor excuse for not doing something. Granted the natural laws of man (gravity, speed of light, transforming into a Liger etc) impart their own limitations on us – but that’s not what I’m talking about. The limitations are in your mind not in what you find.
Limits aren’t just embraced by the downtrodden; they’re especially loved by the ruling class. We were all born of the same blood and flesh. Many of us have risen to greatness despite or in fact BECAUSE of the obstacles. Most think they can’t do something because they only factor in themselves.
Che Guevara was a solitary man who was passionate about something he believed in. It doesn’t even matter what it was. What matters is that he believed that he could make a difference. Others believed in him because he believed in himself. His actions ended up becoming revolutionary.
Before you get hung up on the fact that he became legendary and revolutionary realize this: he reached that status by being lifted up by many many others. He may have been a man with a vision but it took many others to get there. The next time you say you can’t just think of all the others who believe you can and then you can.
Tags: che guevara, poor excuse, ruling class, solitary man, speed of light
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February 8th, 2010
We only think of failure as a bad thing when in actuality it couldn’t be better. Failure is what drives us to reinvigorate, reinvent, renew, refresh, restart. The only true failure is if you choose not to try again. Failure is what allows us to take our game to the next level. The only way you can turn failure into a positive experience is if you have a winner’s mindset.
Winning isn’t everything. In fact, it’s only a very small percentage of everything. Winners have to go through a lot of failure before “it” happens. Winners are not made over night; they’re made over many nights.
What do I want to do? Fail hard and fail spectacularly. I’d rather not have my wins come easy to me one after another. Savoring the glorious victory isnt as sweet without the experiencing agony of defeat.
Tags: actuality, agony of defeat, glorious victory, mindset, next level
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January 31st, 2010
Why do people gather? For that matter why does anything gather? To be around like minds?
To not be alone. As much as someone says they want to be alone they don’t. We all need others to define ourselves.
Online and offline you’ll see people gathering naturally:
Chat rooms
Discussion boards
Social networks
Microblogging platforms
Special events
Clubs
Concerts
Museums
These are places where people naturally come together around one centralized topic. If you look closer there are overlapping subtopics that look like many Venn Diagrams overlaid at once. They may have differing opinions and views on what they’re consuming but the one thing that remains constant is what they are there for.
Some ways people gather are apparent while others are more subtle. One thing is for sure – we gather and we gather often.
Tags: clubs concerts, social networks, subtle one, subtopics, venn diagrams
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January 31st, 2010
If you thought people would laugh at you before you did something would you do it? Do you think that if you did that’s brave? I do.
There’s a certain amount of chutzpah that a trailblazer needs. Innovators, entrepreneurs, activists, creators – they all regularly put themselves on the line to be critiqued. Why do they allow themselves to be emotionally ripped apart day in an day out? The benefits outweigh the bruises.
If you’re willing to risk humiliation for a huge reward you may just be one of them. Know this: it probably won’t come easy, there will be a lot of heartache but you will gain invaluable experience along the way.
What if Apple gave up at revolutionizing design in computing? Well we’d all have beige boxes and generally uninspiring hardware. Most people wrote Apple off as an “also-ran-as” but they kept forging on. Each one of us has what it takes to be a trailblazer. You just have to be willing to be laughed at.
Tags: beige boxes, chutzpah, heartache, innovators, invaluable experience
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January 31st, 2010
“Insanity: doing the same thing over and over again and expecting different results.” -Albert Einstein
Albert Einstein started out working in a patent office [1] but clearly didn’t end up known as the best patent clerk in the world (although I can argue he was the most notorious). He changed his routine. He changed his world.
Which brings me to a larger point – everything doesn’t last forever and will ultimately change.
If you’re working at your job and have been for years in the same 9-5 Monday to Friday path look at it on two levels: macro and micro. On the macro level – you haven’t always worked at your job. You were in school. You had hopes and dreams beyond working in an office for a large company. On the micro level – you have new interactions everyday, with a coworker, a business associate, the coffee shop guy, the internet. Nothing you do will EVER give you the same results.
Why did something happen? How did you get to where you are? You ultimately decided to allow it to happen. You may have not forced the circumstances that led up to the decisive moment but you did let it into your life.
On the micro level Albert Einstein is wrong. You can never have the same results. There are too many factors in that moment to make it exactly the same. On the macro level he’s right. If you keep on doing what you’ve been doing the way you’ve always been doing it don’t expect a different outcome.
Change your view. Change the way you approach things. Do you walk the same way every day? Change your routine. Find a new way to get to done. In the very least it’ll make life more interesting. At most it could change your whole life.
*Side note – I’m changing my own routine. All branding and social media articles will be over at http://damienbasile.posterous.com. More general posts about how to ‘get to done’ will be over here from now on. I’ve done this to create clarity and save me time writing so I can use my time more efficiently elsewhere.
Tags: albert einstein, einstein albert, hopes and dreams, patent clerk, patent office
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January 30th, 2010
What if Martin Luther King Jr. never visited Gandhi? He may have not been affected “in a profound way, deepening his understanding of non-violent resistance and his commitment to America’s struggle for civil rights.” [1]
What if Gandhi never faced discrimination in South Africa? (being thrown off a train, beaten by a stagecoach driver and barred by hotels) He may have not had the same experience as these “events were a turning point in his life, awakening him to social injustice and influencing his subsequent social activism.” [2]
What if you don’t stand up in the face of adversity? What if you choose to fight against instead of standing up for? What if you just decided to take a different road? Maybe it will be easier. Maybe. But maybe you’ll be missing out on the amazing revolutionary things that could have been.
Martin Luther King Jr. would have been just another preacher. Gandhi would have been just another lawyer. What would you just be?
Tags: discrimination in south africa, martin luther king, martin luther king jr, social activism, social injustice
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November 10th, 2009
A strong brand pays attention to details. A smart brand connects with the connectors in memorable ways that may not be readily quantifiable. A savvy brand knows that there are many factors involved in making something a hit or miss. Motorola is all of these and more when it comes to Droid.
On Android day, Cake Group put together an amazing event for Motorola’s Droid release. Their efforts went beyond the day of with connecting with various influencers beforehand to seed articles after the fact.
The branding brilliance comes into play with the attention to details. Customized shortened urls were created just for the event:
Press Release for Droid: http://bit.ly/MotoDroid
Link to Droid specs/product info: http://bit.ly/MotorolaDroid
Pictures from last night: http://bit.ly/MotoLaunchParty
The invitation was elegant, simple and overall top-notch:
What really set them apart was Motorola’s use of Foursquare in a relevant and timely way:
If that wasn’t enough, the piece that pulled it all together was the fact that the launch party took place in Morimoto, the famous Japanese restaurant. MoriMOTO, MOTOrola - very slight but very intentional and very effective.
With Motorola the attention is in the details. At every turn there was a robot, or droid, to reinforce that we were there in fact for the DROID launch. By the end of the party none of the robot droids were left, as they were almost as coveted as the DROID itself. Another small detail was the DROID branded photo-booth downstairs, which came with props like a giant inflatable 90’s-era cellphone and a raygun, as well as an alien backdrop.
Attention to details doesn’t stop after the party: I have it on good authority that Cake Group also added tips to every Verizon store on DROID day (11-6-9) to clue people in to the new Motorola DROID. While Foursquare may not be completely mainstream yet one thing is for sure – the people that ARE using advanced social networking services are the ones who are buying these new mobiile computing “phones”. With the proliferation of these advanced communication devices it’s only a matter of time before everyone is using one. Until then we have companies like Motorola and Cake Group who are using branding purposefully to guide us along the way.
Tags: android, attention, authority, backdrop, brand, brilliance, Cake, cellphone, clue, computing, day, detail, downstairs, droid, droids, end, event, fact, Foursquare, giant, giant inflatable, Group, influencers, info, invitation, japanese restaurant, launch, launch party, link, mainstream, mobiile, Morimoto, motorola, networking, networking services, new motorola, night, none, party, photo booth, Pictures, piece, place, play, Press, product, props, raygun, release, restaurant, robot, seed, social networking, something, store, thing, top notch, turn, Use, verizon, way
Posted in branding, life, social media | 1 Comment »
October 15th, 2009
Appeared originally as a comment on MJ Newham’s wonderful blog at http://martin.newham.ws on a post called Future Of Print.
There are two types of readers: situational and experiential.
I happen to be both so I understand why dead archives are needed as well as digital files. My solution: bamboo. Bamboo is stronger than tree paper, only takes 2 years (give or take) to grow to maturity, and still retains the tactile sensibilities that tree paper does.
I feel that Kindle is the wrong direction. What Kindle is trying to do is recreate a book experience in digital format. The digital format is something separate and needs to be treated as so. The whole point of a digital library is to be able to take many “books” with you at once. Kindle doesn’t make this easy. Plus, it’s not aesthetically pleasing. That’s aim number one with a bookjacket.
The iPhone trumps the Kindle in many ways with the Stanza app. This app isn’t trying to recreate a book reading experience in digital. It makes your reading experience as easy as possible for the medium that you are using. It’s size makes it easy for me to read on the go, which speaks to the whole issue of portability. If you’re concerned with text size, don’t be- there is a feature where you can increase the text size to whatever suits you. I personally would rather read less on a “page” to gain more space in the physical world. I am a man and do not always carry a bag. I don’t want to be seen carrying some unfortunately huge thing when I’m going out, yet I always want to read AND listen to music on my way to some place.
Dead plant books will still be around, just like cds & dvds will still be around. They will all exist in a special limited edition collectors format for those who really need to have a physical copy of something to cherish. Remember, we like having physical copies of stuff. It adds to our definition of who we are. Not everything that we consume should make the cut though.
Digitization is the implementation of zen Buddhism in our physical lives.
*addendum: vook.tv along with the mythical Apple iTablet will most likely bring us a more truer digital ‘book’.
Tags: book, book experience, book reading, books, business, collectibles, collectors item, design, digital books, digital library, digitization, ebook, ebooks, edition collectors, ereader, ereaders, functionality, iphone, kindle, limited edition, paper books, physical copies, portability, reading experience, sensibilities, stanza, technology, wrong direction
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