I Miss Geppetto

by Ernie Schenck

I miss Geppetto. I miss the tinkerers. The craftsmen. The crazies. The looney art directors who don’t know the meaning of the words, “pencils down.” The obsessed whack jobs who never quite know when to let it go. The font that isn’t quite right. The word that isn’t quite adequate. The 1.5-second dissolve that maybe should be 1.576, or 1.478, or something. And there is always, always, always, always, always, always something.

I miss Geppetto.

Not that there were ever very many of him. And I suppose that’s how it should be. This is a business after all, is it not? There are deadlines to keep. Expectations to manage. Opinions to navigate. So many hostile realities to turn back. It’s as if you are Neo in some advertising agency version of The Matrix and you are fighting a million Mr. Smiths all at once.

Yet, somehow a few manic souls once managed to dance between the raindrops. And somewhere out there, they still do. How they are able to do this, I wish I could tell you.

I could say it is a stubborn determination to push back, to just say no, to lock the door and ignore the world and put your head down and just keep twittering and noodling and pushing and pulling and, when there is something of greatness to emerge, then and only then are you willing to step out into the light and say, “Here it is. Now it’s ready.” And it is partly that.

I could say that it is their good fortune to work in a place far from the microscope of big time advertising. That at this very moment there is a creative team in North Dakota or Alabama or Iowa or West Virginia, and they are hunkered down without fear of the naysayers, the bomb throwers, the time-sheet obsessors. They are busily chipping away at that tiny rough stone, chipping, chipping, chipping until as bright and dazzling a bit of advertising you have ever seen comes spilling out onto the page or the screen or the god knows what.

But I know better than to believe that there are no naysayers in North Platte. No bomb throwers in Baltimore. No time-sheet obsessors in Toledo. They are there. And they are, I am sure, as fierce or worse than their counterparts in New York or Los Angeles or Chicago. I could say that Geppetto has gone to ground. That he’s working off the grid. Found himself some creative hidey hole just out of range of the security cameras. But I know better. There are no hidey holes. Nowhere to hide. Not if you’re a tinkerer. Not if you’re Geppetto.

And damn it, I miss the tinkerers.

I miss their passion for the word and the picture. I miss what they once gave us. The realization that, hell yes, the work is worth sweating over. That compulsiveness is something to be coveted, instead of discouraged. That the nagging suspicion that all those faceless gray drones in the Apple 1984 spot were, in fact, not us. That we aren’t all just creative androids toiling away in our cubicles, deluded in our hopeless belief that what we are doing is fresh and worthy and edgy, when in fact it is gray and faceless and we are all mere cookie cutters working for, as John Twelve Hawks puts it, The Vast Machine.

I like speed. I love speed. I love 48-hour film projects. I love ticking clocks. I love how they put our backs against the wall so there’s no time to think, analyze, bicker with ourselves, to do anything but just explode with raw imagination. I love it all. Love moving at the speed of light, from this to that and that to this. But do I miss the fussing and the fidgeting? Totally.

You know what I think? I think we’ve gone too far. We preached the gospel of the idea and we preached and we preached and we preached. It’s the idea, stupid. It’s not about the font or the picture or this green or that blue or any of that. Why, if only the idea was big enough, nothing else mattered. Everything else was frosting. Inconsequential at best. Detrimental at worst. I believed that. I was one of the preachers. I believed it and I wanted it and I wouldn’t let go of it. But an idea is only as big as the clothes it has on. The nuances that give it heart. The subtle things that make it walk and talk and blow our minds with its beauty.

I miss Geppetto.


{Via Communication Arts}

Dear Client,

Generation M Manifesto?

Interesting take on the new ideals of Generation M by Umair Haque of the Harvard Business Review. ("M" would demographically be the Millennials, a.k.a GenY and those born between 1981 to 1993.)

Not sure if I agree with everything in this post, but it does a good job of pointing out the possibility of a new, democritized future that is made possible by the participation web.

***

Dear Old People Who Run the World,

My generation would like to break up with you.

Everyday, I see a widening gap in how you and we understand the world — and what we want from it. I think we have irreconcilable differences.

You wanted big, fat, lazy "business." We want small, responsive, micro-scale commerce.

You turned politics into a dirty word. We want authentic, deep democracy — everywhere.

You wanted financial fundamentalism. We want an economics that makes sense for people — not just banks.

You wanted shareholder value — built by tough-guy CEOs. We want real value, built by people with character, dignity, and courage.

You wanted an invisible hand — it became a digital hand. Today's markets are those where the majority of trades are done literally robotically. We want a visible handshake: to trust and to be trusted.

You wanted growth — faster. We want to slow down — so we can become better.

You didn't care which communities were capsized, or which lives were sunk. We want a rising tide that lifts all boats.

You wanted to biggie size life: McMansions, Hummers, and McFood. We want to humanize life.

You wanted exurbs, sprawl, and gated anti-communities. We want a society built on authentic community.

You wanted more money, credit and leverage — to consume ravenously. We want to be great at doing stuff thatmatters.

You sacrificed the meaningful for the material: you sold out the very things that made us great for trivial gewgaws, trinkets, and gadgets. We're not for sale: we're learning to once again do what is meaningful.

There's a tectonic shift rocking the social, political, and economic landscape. The last two points above are what express it most concisely. I hate labels, but I'm going to employ a flawed, imperfect one: Generation "M."

What do the "M"s in Generation M stand for? The first is for a movement. It's a little bit about age — but mostly about a growing number of people who are acting very differently. They are doing meaningful stuff that matters the most. Those are the second, third, and fourth "M"s.

Gen M is about passion, responsibility, authenticity, and challenging yesterday's way of everything. Everywhere I look, I see an explosion of Gen M businesses, NGOs, open-source communities, local initiatives, government. Who's Gen M?Obama, kind of. Larry and Sergey. The Threadless, Etsy, and Flickr guys. Ev, Biz and the Twitter crew. Tehran 2.0. The folks at Kiva, Talking Points Memo, and FindtheFarmer. Shigeru Miyamoto, Steve Jobs, Muhammad Yunus, and Jeff Sachs are like the grandpas of Gen M. There are tons where these innovators came from.

Gen M isn't just kind of awesome — it's vitally necessary. If you think the "M"s sound idealistic, think again.

The great crisis isn't going away, changing, or "morphing." It's the same old crisis — and it's growing.

You've failed to recognize it for what it really is. It is, as I've repeatedly pointed out, in our institutions: the rules by which our economy is organized.

But they're your institutions, not ours. You made them — and they're broken. Here's what I mean:

"... For example, the auto industry has cut back production so far that inventories have begun to shrink — even in the face of historically weak demand for motor vehicles. As the economy stabilizes, just slowing the pace of this inventory shrinkage will boost gross domestic product, or GDP, which is the nation's total output of goods and services."

Clearing the backlog of SUVs built on 30-year-old technology is going to pump up GDP? So what? There couldn't be a clearer example of why GDP is a totally flawed concept, an obsolete institution. We don't need more land yachts clogging our roads: we need a 21st Century auto industry.

I was (kind of) kidding about seceding before. Here's what it looks like to me: every generation has a challenge, and this, I think, is ours: to foot the bill for yesterday's profligacy — and to create, instead, an authentically, sustainably shared prosperity.

Anyone — young or old — can answer it. Generation M is more about what you do and who you are than when you were born. So the question is this: do you still belong to the 20th century - or the 21st?

Love,

Umair and the Edge Economy Community

Original post here.

Web Site Story: An Internet Musical

CollegeHumor.com brings West Side Story into the Internet age, with Tony spotting Maria on Facebook.

“I’m on Facebook, I’m on Facebook

And my Facebook updates with my Tweets

So I Twitter, and then everybody knows my deets.”

Spring.ph

Looks like the hype is finally building for Spring Awakening Manila.

I'm very excited to see it... Though it's always scary to have something you love re-done by someone else - don't you get that feeling when you hear rumors about a possible Friends movie? It could go so wrong!

I'm sure it will be amazing though, since Atlantis has a great track record... I saw their Rent five times!

In case you haven't read much about the play yet, Spring Awakening is a re-telling of the 1891 play of the same title by Frank Wedekind. It takes place in pre-Hitler Germany and tells the story of teenagers who are struggling to make sense of their sexuality versus the very conservative (older members of) society that refuses to educate or guide them.

The play was banned during Wedekind's time, but Steven Sater and Duncan Shiek resurrected the property that eventually opened on Broadway in 2006. The show was extremely successful, with critics touting it as the Rent of the 2000s. It eventually went on to win the Tony for Best Musical in 2007.

The genius of this play, I think, is in the treatment of the musical numbers. It says in the CD notes that (I'm paraphrasing) Steven and Duncan decided that, unlike in traditional musicals that use songs to advance the story, all the songs in Spring should be moments of reflection or personal thought. So you'll never see two characters singing to each other as if they spontaneously decided to break out into song... and thus, were able to infuse the old school 19th century content with beautiful pop and rock songs that are rocking the world!

***

Because I so love Spring, and haven't really seen much online marketing by Atlantis for their previous productions, I'd like to offer some free online digital marketing ideas. I'm sure their sales model of having individuals / private groups buy show dates and take care of their own sales is working for them. But shows like this only come around once every few years and I think they have an opportunity to highlight some extremely relevant subject matter that will resonate with a lot of Filipinos.

Some of these ideas are serious and some are really not. I'll leave it to you (and Atlantis) to decide which are which:

1. Promotional Video w/ Online Release

This is inspired by the one Lin Manuel Miranda did to promote In The Heights, a contemporary rap-musical about community and family.

The show opened around the time that High School Musical 2 came out. It seems that LMM decided to use YouTube as a promotional tool by spoofing of one of the songs in the movie.

{Insert slow clapping emoticon}

By using the HSM2 song and giving (the original Melchior and my super Broadway crush) Jonathan Groff a cameo, he puts this video right in the potential search results for people who are into the High School Musical franchise (and are teens, who are part of the target market) or are fans of Jonathan Groff (and therefore probably inclined to come see another Broadway show). He is a genius!

And, well, his show followed in Spring's footsteps and went on to win the Tony for Best Musical in 2008. Ya?

2. Tie-up with Durex or Frenzy
The story features teenage sex and teenage pregancy - I'd say this makes it a dream tie-up for a condom manufacturer. Sadly, I cannot take credit for this idea.

3. Twitter account for the stage manager

I think that stage managers have the most fascinating job. And I'm sure they'll have all of good tsismis... and maybe give away free tickets? Or unclaimed free stage seats ala Ellen DeGeneres?

4. Do Spring Unplugged and release on... Fliptunes.net?

iTunes got Duncan Shiek and some of the Spring cast members to record Spring Awakening as part of their Live from Soho series! All the songs are great, especially the "Bitch of Living" with Duncan, Jonathan Gallagher Jr and Hunter Parrish, and Duncan's solo "Guilty Ones".

5. Behind-the-scenes coverage on Pelicola.tv

Pelicola is the perfect partner for Spring in terms of style and the expertise in producing music content.

6. Content-rich Spring website

The original website has the usual Story, Cast & Crew features but also a special section for fans - which includes a forum and the chance to ask a featured cast member any question the fans want. Sadly, none of my questions ever got posted. Who doesn't want to know how Matt Doyle (of Gossip Girl fame) feels about being called "Mattchior"?

The website should, of course, have a... (this is my *winning* idea)

7. 1800s Bloomers widget

Want to see how you'd look if you were cast in the play and had to wear these great suit-bloomer things? Simply upload your photo into this app and viola. Then you'll get to choose which neo-modern hairstyle you'd be sporting - corissants like Georg or straight up like Moritz.

You can then share your Spring Awakened photo on Facebook, Plurk, Twitter & Multiply.

***

I'm sure this has sparked many ideas for the local production team. Right?! Believe it or not, I held back a bit when listing ideas in case Atlantis actually wants to pay me (or give me an unlimited pass to watch?) to give them access to the goldmine that is my Spring Awakening Manila web marketing plan!

For more info and ticket inquiries, check out Atlantis Productions. Or follow Spring on Twitter.

So what?

Got my issue of the latest Adobo. One of the articles was about the online fracas that came out of the Ako Mismo campaign.

The article highlighted the e-mail sent by one such Jamie Garchitorena that warned users about the personal information being collected by Smart that may / will be sold and used during the May 2010 Elections.

Somebody forwarded the e-mail to me when Ako Mismo launched a few months ago. And while I was happy about the effort he took to read and share the fine, fine print - which is, you have to admit, a little shady - I couldn't quite understand the big deal.

After all, we give out so much information about ourselves already - Facebook knows who we are in a relationship with, where we study, live, work, our Top 5 TV shows, how fast we type, who thinks we are the "Most Likely To Have Imaginary Friends", where we have travelled, where we dream of travelling and whether or not Mang Ado is my Homeboy! Google knows what blogs I read everyday, what secrets my best friends are revealing to me via email, what documents and spreadsheets I'm working on via GoogleDocs. Yahoo knows who all of my friends are, and which of them I actually chat with on a daily basis. Twitter and Plurk know what I'm doing, thinking, wishing, wondering, sharing right now! Would you tell anybody your Facebook, Twitter and Plurk passwords? Some aggregator sites like Quub, Ping, Twitdeck know all of my passwords! Nutshell Mail will even take on my microblogs and e-mail accounts!

You think Flickr isn't paying attention to the kinds of photos that get uploaded most, that Last.fm isn't checking who is listening to which aritst and which bands are getting the most exposure, that CNN and Inquirer aren't checking what stories are the top viewed?ts

And in case we oursleves are curious about what other people are doing... well there's always Spock! (Hope the site isn't offline anymore.)

We hardly pay attention to the digital fingerprints we leave all over the Net but every move we make is trackable by someone, somewhere. And every brand, website, media channel is only happy to take advantage.

But it isn't all bad. Amazon wouldn't be nearly as relevant to me if it didn't recommend books, CDs, DVDs I might like by checking what other items I had previously searched for. And what would 2009 be if not for Twitter, which dutifully documents what so many of us are doing, thinking, find interesting, following - and makes this data available to the world, real time!

Seeing the article again on Ako Mismo only brought to mind one of my favorite local websites, bayanifernando.ph - his site has a photo promo and just to read the mechanics he asks you to register with name, email address, contact details, etc! Now that's terrible.

All we can do is be careful. We can't help but leave traces of ourselves all over the web... but that's also what makes now different from any other time in history - when else have we been able to put our fingers on the pulse of the world? You have to admit, it is kind of amazing.