Here is a bit about love146, taken from there website:

LOVE146 VISION
The abolition of child sex slavery and exploitation. Nothing less.

LOVE146 MISSION
Abolition and Restoration! We combat child sex slavery & exploitation with the unexpected and restore survivors with excellence.

Rob is leading his brave and innovative team in a grueling fight, that transcends cultures and borders. Though the issue of child trafficking / slavery has seen a bit of media attention over the last few years, the fact remains that more people are in modern slavery today, than ever before. This is not a past issue, but rather a burning issue of our times. And please do not think this is an issue of somewhere else. Trafficking happens every day, in 1st world cultures, including America.

Because of his admirable sacrifice and determination, and the great potential that awaits in a partnership with the TED orginization, I nominate Rob to be a 2012 TED Fellow.

P.S. a friend of mine Brad Riley, is also leading an amazing team @iempathize , and definitely worth your blood, sweat, and tears

the creative agency

Though I have had the privilege of working at two great digital agencies, Crispin Porter + Bogusky and Springbox, I am still very interested in hearing from other leading shops, to find out the struggles, unique viewpoints, and victories that they have discovered. Whether it’s exploring the digital pod / team concept from R/GA, or a radically new compensation model from Fahrenheit 212, or hopefully a dozen of other innovative agency models / structures, I am looking forward to hearing other’s thoughts on forming and unleashing creative teams, adjusting and finessing the creative process, and the evolving digital agency in general.

the good, the bad, and the ugly role of digital in our daily life

how is the ever present stream of information and connectability helping / hurting our lives? our relationships? our family? our health? our careers? our neighborhoods? what are the psychological affects of always being connected / on / checking in? Specifically for me, as a new dad, and young husband, what precautions do I need to take to keep my own and my families digital intake at a healthy ebb and flow?

technology for the greater good

how can we move past shiny gadgets and time wasting games, and use technology for the greater good of our community, and ultimately our world? how can we use technology to provide basic necessities such as clean water / food / dignity / freedom from slavery to those daily affected by these issues? Much closer to home, how can we restore wonder and play to a dilapidated education system? What can be done to improve easy access to locally grown foods? The possibilities are endless. I know this one is a bit vague, but I have a feeling that there is so much that COULD be done, but is currently being trumped by angry birds and shiny plastic. I mention this topic, not as one who is an expert or even currently active in creating solutions, but rather as an area that I want to invest more of my time and energy into.

So those are my top interest for #sxswi 2011. What about you?

yep, seven years, three states, and 35,892 psd files later, I’m finally staring down the joy of taking part in the sxsw interactive festival this year. oh joy.

so to give this monumentous event the care and energy it deserves, I will be sharing a bit of my preparation on the blog here, with a desire to facilitate a conversation, more than prescribe a plan of attack for others. if 2011 will be your first year attending as well, welcome fellow newby! or maybe your a veteran and could recite the last ten years keynotes in your speech. if so, i would love to hear tips and advice, as well as what your looking forward to as this year’s shindig. or maybe your in the same boat as i have been up until this point, and you can’t make it to tehas this year. even so, i’d love to hear your thought on the topics and have you join in from afar!

Enough preamble, here’s a rough look at the topics I want to cover in this series of posts:

Topics I’m interested in

Reading list in preperation for #sxswi

People I’d like to share a pint with

hidden gems to find while in Austin

daily thougths (during the conference)

post-conference wrap up

I hope you join me in my preparation. And as always, if you have any thoughts, suggestions, or gems of wisdom to contribute here, share away!

to be honest, i was a bit disappointed with it. if asked, i would admit that. it’s not very playful. it’s not stretching the company visually or conceptually. but alas, it’s not really my place to blast this well established / successful brand.

so i moved on and kept working through the rest of the day.

but it didn’t stop there. just the next day the bonfire of one liners and full on blasts have now grown into a forest fire. everybody has an opinon. and there all ripping this work to shreds. just like they did to the itunes 10 logo / interface a few weeks back.

ripping it apart as if they have their own pedestal of a proven portfolio of work from which to stand on.

some of these critics do good work, but the majority of them have never invested the time, sweat, and blood to make a internationally successful brand.

so, as i alluded to earlier in the week in a tweet:

Don’t criticize someone else’s identity / website unless your own is stellar.

and even then, only do it if it is helpful.

It’s so much easier to tear down every one else around us, than to invest the time and energy into building something great. I’ll be the first to admit this.

I may not be as vocal as some, but i catch myself all the time mentally throwing stones at the latest agency.com redesign, or identity rework. it’s easy to play down someone else’s hard work, guts, and or brilliance.

I heard it a few days before the whole gap hoopla, with a recent agency’s .com redesign. i overheard two guys talking about it, and how meh it was, when they’re very own agency’s site is 4 years old, aging, and in really bad need of a rework.

the monologue usually goes something like this:

“it’s not bad… but…

they’re working with _______ brand, so they can do that…

or

it’s been done before..

or

if only i worked with clients that had that type of budget..

or

it’s kind of predictable…

and the list goes on and on.

It’s time to stop. Stop the crap. Stop the excuses.

Lay down the stones. Turn off twitter. Close out the latest hysterical rant about the hideous redesign of ___________ .

Let’s pick up the chisel. let’s get to work. and let’s make something beautiful.

PS. i realize the irony in writing a post, critiquing the critics. but i had to get this off my chest. please forgive me for having a log in my own eye.

i know it. you know it.

we experience it everyday.

so if your reading this. i’m genuinely honored. thank you.

so in a time when there is never a shortage of things to read, watch, or play with, how does an individual, brand, or organization measure their own influence on the world?

how do we know the difference between adding to the noise, or actually contributing to a greater conversation?

a two way conversation.

i know, by just using the over hyped word “conversation”, you might be extremely tempted to stop reading.

but that’s exactly what i’m aiming for when i communicate. and i hope you are too.

though i’m not the best at it. i want to engage, listen to, contemplate, and thoughtfully communicate with others.

so i’m not really interested in a popularity contest, whether measured by twitter followers, friends, retweets, or any other number.

it’s cliche, but it truly is about quality. it has never been about quantity.

but maybe your thinking, it’s really hard to measure quality, especially in the digitally social spheres that we are daily engaged with.

how can we measure the meaningful influence we have? is your brand / organization actually communicating with customers? or just using a bullhorn to annoy the masses?

enter a sweet new website i found recently, http://www.klout.com

though not perfect, i’m finding it really useful and interesting. sure, it’s easy to see that so and so has 1,000 followers, or a brand has 13k followers. But again, how much of that is noise?

i’m excited to see this service, along with others yet to be launched, grow and evolve into a deeper way to look into this tricky subject.

before jumping into my early favorites, i do want to note one choice that the sxsw organizers took, that i thought was really classy and cool: there is no vote count or leaderboard for the proposed panels! very very cool, and a great attempt at keeping this from becoming a bandwagon ready popularity contest. thanks sxswi!

that being said, here is an early list of my favorite panels i’ve found so far, and as always i would love to hear your thoughts on these and / or other panels:

Interaction Jones and the Template of Doom
Organizer Naz Hamid, http://www.weightshift.com

Collaboration Nation: How Side-Projects Can Keep You Relevant
Organizer Phil Coffman, http://springbox.com , http://methodandcraft.com

Crazy, Cool, and Interesting Uses of GeoData
By Elad Gil, http://twitter.com

Congratulations! Your Brand Is About to Become Obsolete.
Organizer Andrea Ring, http://www.rga.com

How to Whup ‘Em with the Leroy Stick
By Hawk Thompson, http://www.springbox.com/

Branding Reinvented: Creating Engagement in the Digital World
By david lai, http://www.hellodesign.com/

Listen To Me Dammit! I’m An Expert!
Organizer Chris Mayfield, http://springbox.com

Better Ideas Faster: Effective Brainstorming for Interactive Design
Organizer David Sherwin, http://www.frogdesign.com

Apps or Mobile Site: How to Choose
By Adrian Taylor, http://www.springbox.com

Design as Lifestyle: An Honest Day’s Work
Organizer Duane King http://www.kingduane.com

Interactive Branding and the Built Environment
Organizer Jamie Monberg, http://www.hornallanderson.com/

Let’s Go: The Evolution of JetBlue.com
Organizer Michal Pasternak, http://www.hugeinc.com

Can Design and Technology Fix America’s Education Problem?
Organizer John Kolko, http://www.frogdesign.com

Switch: from Freelancer to Entrepreneur
Organizer Matthew Smith, http://www.squaredeye.com

From Storytelling to Technology and Back Again
Organizer Barry Wacksman, http://www.rga.com

Stop Talking, Start Making
Organizer Will Turnage http://www.rga.com

How Does Scifi Influence Our Future Cities?
Organizer Igor Schwarzmann, http://www.cognitivecities.com

Storytelling in an Age of Industrialized Content
Organizer Upendra Shardanand, http://www.daylife.com

Digital Bookmaking for Designers & Developers
Organizer Brian warren, http://begoodnotbad.com/

Websites Aren’t Enough: the New Interaction Design
Organizer @danielmall

The New Loyalists: Measuring Brand Advocacy Today
Organizer Luane Kohnke, http://www.rga.com

by alex bogusky and john windsor

If advertising is not your chosen profession in life, why the heck would you want to read a book written by two of the top leaders in the advertising world? (alex bogusky, @bogusky , longtime creative director at crispin porter + bogusky; and John Winsor, @jtwinsor , former head of product innovation & cognitive research at cp+b)

Because I believe the authors are on to something. And it’s not advertising. I want to say it’s way past advertising, but it’s actually pre advertsing.

What?? Sound confusing? Let’s jump into the meat of the book.

Though I passionately disagree with both authors on the value and practice of crowdsourcing, here are a few of their points from @bakedin that stuck with me:

+ Let’s cut the crap of lying and false promises about products, and instead design a useful & beautiful product / experience that meets the users exact needs & wants.

+ Stop spending 3,4, or 8 years in r & d, and instead prototype and test early, and revise what works and throw away the rest.

+ Listen to and know your audience, and make a product that fits, instead making a mediocre product and then trying to advertise the crap out of it.

+ Incrementally changing a mediocre product each year to be (slightly) new & improved is a flawed business plan. Let’s innovate! Let’s create something new! Let’s create something beautiful! Let’s create something useful!!

So if you have any interest in providing a useful / beautiful / wow product or service, do your future self a favor and pick this book up!

Also, a big thanks to @jtwinsor for sending me a copy of the book to review!

I remember the first time I saw a video of @garyvee giving a keynote talk ( if you haven’t watched one, you should, right now! here ), and I really didn’t know what to think.

1st – is this guy on crack?

2nd – whoa, I’ve never thought about ______ that way. Or that. Or that…

3rd – this might be half way insane, but he’s passionate, driven, and genuine.

So naturally when I heard he was writing a book, I was eager to check it out, although I was skeptical that it would be engaging all the way to the end.

I’m happy to say I read the whole thing, and enjoyed all of it! Know that it was a nice and brief weighing in under 140 pages!

The content was a really good mix of gary’s personal story, a motivational punch in the mouth ( the good kind of course, that get you riled up and in arms ), and practical real life advice on how to use specific tools like Twitter and facebook to share your passion.

Although I enjoyed hearing his story most, running a close second was the honesty with which Gary approaches advice on using social media tools. Instead of claiming to be a “social media expert”, he starts with the fundamentals of one knowing your passion & your DNA, and then offers some take them or leave them tips / best practices on specific tools.

Though I don’t agree with Gary on a number of finer points, I could not agree more with his core message:

Find your passion. Craft your presentation medium. And never forget that content is king.