Is there music in your silent film?

By guest blogger, June Blanks

Music in your silent film is about (dis)placement: the placement of the well thought out decision into an environment where it may, until now, seem out of place. Through the art of (dis)placement, the momentum of the changing world takes on new and interesting shapes that reflect innovation.

Consider the world…Modern electronic musician, Will Gregory of Goldfrapp finds the inspiration to team up with the BBC Orchestra for live performances creating the score to the 1924 silent film "He Who Gets Slapped." If silence and music can be converged, then by rule of the new law of (dis)placement, the gates are wide open. The world is changing. The cadence of its daily rhythms are continuously evolving.

As business leaders (established, growing, and emerging), you are orchestrators of ideas, architects of the human experience. Innovative and forward thinking business decisions are like creating a musical composition or an architectural plan, which is enveloped into the moving picture of life, uniquely changing the options for how the world is experienced.

Elements of business converge at intersections. Intersections provide the opportunities for decisions to define the essence and success of your business model and brand identity. Keep one eye on business, one eye on culture, and your third eye on missions and philosophies. Decisions within intersections easily become gimmicky without careful exploration into the reasoning, shape, and potential outcomes. Sometimes the decision is to keep moving without a major change in direction, until the pieces line up and the golden idea clicks.

So what makes music in your silent film? Your products and services are swimming in a world that needs your inspiration. When you make decisions about your product and service, think about the world that it will swim into…how your decisions can change how we experience the standard face of the world, how your business can even add life right down the street from your block, and what makes your products and services destinations that walk to the beat of a different drummer.

Cool like Dat

 Guest blogger, Kalen Jericho

Are you a hunter, the hunted, or cool enough to be both?

Coolhunting . . . or as defined by reference.com: A term coined in the early 1990s referring to a new breed of marketing professionals, called coolhunters. It is their job to make observations and predictions in changes of new or existing cultural trends.

It does not mean 'trend analyst', or 'interview group coordinator' or even 'marketing guru'.

It means that you eat, sleep and breathe cool, like Josh Rubin, the Editor in Chief of coolhunting.com, the foremost online forum for art, design, fashion and culture. If you do a google news search for 'coolhunting', 46 of the 50 articles that appear, are from this site.  And 1 of the other 4 articles references it.

It means you create cool, like the fashion forward kids from Manhattan's lower east side that Malcolm Gladwell mentions in his bestselling book, "The Tipping Point".  These creative creators brought about the resurgence of hushpuppies; turning a company on the verge of bankruptcy into an industry leader in a matter of months.  (If you don't know what hushpuppies are, brush up on your 'cool' and google it.)

It means you can commune cool, like the founders of Xindc, a genuinely popular monthly event in Washington, DC.  X = (Electronica + Projections + Art + Fashion + Performance) + YOU.  I couldn't say it better myself.  But I can say the ambiance is cool because the people are unique, design oriented, graphic, and creative.  It's a perfect recipe for experiencing all the elements of 'cool'.

What's the thread through these examples . . . and it's not  . . . 'cool'. It's entrepreneurial. It's creating something, that is bigger than the sum of its parts. It doesn't matter if you're the hunted or the hunter as long as you're cool enough to see the connection between what's cool to you and culture, at large.  If you can hunt down what's cool to you and you have the foresight to create something that other people can relate to; people will hunt you down so they can be cool too.  We cool?

It's all about YOO . . . (again?!)

In this new and evolving “you” created world (thanks Youtube, Facebok and ilike) there are others who are also thinking about you as well.  Focusing on you in a way that makes sense and takes into consideration what you as a person wants and what your imagination desires.

Many companies today are inept at finding out who their customers are, what they want, and really dream about.  This is one of the reasons why the Internet has blown the lid off the market.  It allows every individual, no matter who you are, to express yourself freely for the world to hear.  Letting the universe know who you are, what you think, and what you’re about.  So now there is a company taking notice of this new you world and incorporating it into their own personal philosophy and brand. 

That company is Yoo (surprise, surprise), an innovative development firm, founded by Philippe Starck, one of the most forward thinking designers in the world today. With projects ranging from hotels to apartments, Yoo is redefining the concepts of design, branding and marketing in ways development companies can only dream about.  His company’s unique approach, as he states, “helps people discover themselves . . . we bring a real friendly, human, honest, respectful service, but with humor, fantasy, tenderness and craziness.”  Who wouldn’t want to live a YOO designed apartment? His company has been so successful that on residential projects alone, they have 40,000 apartments rising worldwide.

Whether it’s me, you or the girl next door, ideas that genuinely embrace us are beginning to compete with the old guard where one size use to fit all.  What other companies out there are taking this new approach?  How will you (or YOO) continue to change the world we live in?  Let’s wait and see.  The next You company is probably just around the corner. . . 

The Most Valuable Company in the World

Hi everybody. How are you all today? Do me a favor and take a 'virtual' trip with me.  

Sit down to access one of your many email accounts. You see a slew of emails in your inbox. Now begins the ritual of determining which emails you'll keep and which ones you'll send directly to the trash.

How do you decide which of these emails is worth your time? Which do you open immediately and which do you put on the backburner for later? The answer:  personal branding. The name on the email you decide to open is a brand that you trust.  You know it will be worth your time to read the message.  It may put a smile on your face, provide an answer to a question, or even offer sound advice.

This is just one example of what good brands do – BRING VALUE.   

So what's your personal brand?  Are the emails you send bringing value? What ideas are you bringing to the table? What else are you doing to enhance the brand called YOU?  

Maybe you're the business, technology or music trends guru.  Or maybe you're the one who knows where the best shopping spots in town are.  You find the best places in the city to eat.  Its little things like this that help you begin to develop your personal brand.    

When a person is needed to find information on the right professional or social network is your name on the tips of peoples tongues?  When tough decisions are looming and a phone call is being made seeking that winning advice - is it your number they are dialing?   Are you making yourself a valuable commodity by making it a point to bring something to the table that no one else can, better than you?  It is the individuals with the ability to connect people, places and ideas for optimum outcomes that ultimately determines a strong personal brand.

As declared by Time Magazine last year, YOU were picked as person of the year.  A choice that makes complete sense given today’s climate of YouTube, Facebook and user generated experiences.  We are in unique times and the value and power of You, Inc has only just begun.  

Lights, Camera, Pangea Day!

What do Will.i.am, Cameron Diaz, Kigali, Rwanda, Dharamsala, India,  Meg Ryan and New York City have in common? These are just a sample of the people and places involved in one of the most interesting and ambitious ideas in film today.  That idea is Pangea Day.  An idea conceptualized by visionary documentary filmmaker Jehane Noujaim.  

Jehane Noujaim, an Egyptian-American director of the groundbreaking film Control Room (highly recommend seeing) and 2006 TED prizewinner, devised this revolutionary idea that converges film, videoconferencing, you, the Internet, mobile phones and television in a way never before seen.  Pangea Day will look to explore the individual stories, ideas and experiences of various individuals, cultural ideas, and experiences that shed light on the fact of regardless of what part of the world we live in, we are just as similar to each other as we are different.  

Some of the sample films (which are very cool) explore the ideas of the clash of civilizations, a roller blader and an old woman, a little rapper in Bogotá Colombia, and post Katrina life in New Orleans.  Very interesting film shorts!

Take a few minutes and treat yourself to some thought provoking concepts, some incredible talent and a very cool idea!