The Girl Effect

Carrotmob: Harnessing Consumer Power so Everybody Wins

What happens when hundreds of people agree to give a single business their business in exchange for an environmental commitment? Watch and find out:

Carrotmob Makes It Rain from carrotmob on Vimeo.

This really is the perfect example of how the strength of individuals can benefit business and the environment. It bridges the typically hostile gap between activists and Big Corpo. It appeals to the everyday shopper. It has the potential to make real change. And they've even got a business plan (okay, not yet). If you're an angel investor looking for the next perfect project, this might be it.

The Fog of War: Full Transcript

From The Fog of War:

"This is the Secretary of Defense of the United States, Robert McNamara. His department absorbs 10% of the national income of this country, and over half of every tax dollar. His job has been called the toughest in Washington, and McNamara is the most controversial figure that has ever held the job. Walter Lippmann calls him not only the best Secretary of Defense, but the first one who ever asserted civilian control over the military. His critics call him 'a con—man,' 'an IBM machine with legs,' 'an arrogant dictator.'"

Get inside the mind of a very powerful man.

"Forty years ago this country went down a rabbit hole in Vietnam and millions died. I fear we're going down a rabbit hole once again. And if people can stop and think and reflect on some of the ideas and issues in this movie, perhaps I've done some damn good here. Thank you very, very much." —Errol Morris, Academy Awards acceptance speech

Engaging Environment: The NYC Air Bear

I've mentioned Italo Calvino's Marcovaldo, or Seasons in the City, before and I'm reminded of it once again. The book is about a man who manages to see the bits and pieces of our environment that the rest of us overlook. I love what the Air Bear does: it captures what we can't see, using it to engage and entertain.



The work is part of a series by artist Joshua Allen Harris (if anyone can point me to his website, which I couldn't manage to dig up, please do).

Why Do People Do Weird Things?

I've never been a fan of performance art, but this one takes the cake. Several hundred people freezing throughout Grand Central Station in NYC for five minutes. That's it.



From the website:

"We got great reactions from the folks who encountered us. Strangers started talking to each other, trying to figure out what was going on. With wireless microphones hidden in our shirts, a few agents and I struck up conversations with folks. I convinced one guy to grab a cell phone from a frozen woman’s hand. He did it, laughing uncontrollably as he gently put it back in her hand. My favorite reaction was from a female cop who witnessed the whole thing from behind her NYPD recruitment booth:

Me: Do you know what that was?
Cop: I have no idea! That is the craziest shit I’ve ever seen in my life, AND I’M A COP!
Me: Ha. Yeah, it was weird.
Cop: You wanna sign up to be in the NYPD?
Me: No thanks."

So why would you do this? Practically speaking, it accomplishes nothing. But isn't the idea of making people stop in their tracks, wonder about their surroundings, and really think about what they are seeing and experiencing worth something in and of itself?

[via SwissMiss via Gawker]

"Making Good Use of Bad Rubbish"

Here's a great little example of creative thinking:



[via via com it]

I wonder what will this be used for: Scanning crowds for brands and logos

From BBC News:

"The Metropolitan Police is looking into technology which can automatically identify branded logos on clothing...The concept is being considered by Detective Chief Inspector Mick Neville of Operation Javelin, who project manages the Visual Images, Identifications and Detections Office roll-out programme: a pioneering effort to turn the analysis of CCTV into a forensic discipline like fingerprint or DNA analysis...'What they do is they tend to go out in a kind of uniform, if you see a kid in a brand of 'hoodie' you can be pretty sure he'll be wearing that same brand of 'hoodie' the next time he commits an offence.'"

I guess when they say the clothes make the man, they really mean it.

Programs like these raise some pretty big issues: is spying on an innocent citizenry inherently bad? Even if used for good? How do we keep the technology and/or access to the already established systems out of the hands of those who would 1) do us harm, or 2) use the information against our will to achieve any number of ends (including marketing to us)?

I am by default opposed to systems—particularly government-sponsored systems—that collect information about my person without my explicit permission in order to advance their own cause. I'd like to just be left alone. But, of course, that's now impossible in this day and age. So how do we come to terms with a program like the Visual Images, Identifications and Detections Office?

I'm not sure what the answer is, but I know the whole thing creeps me out.

[full story via Murketing]

Orwell and Fascism Come to America

At the risk of sounding like a screaming conspiracy theorist...

Held at the New York Public Library, Here We Go Again: Orwell Comes to America was a recent conference focusing on propaganda in today's America—right here, right now—and how it hogties our public freedoms.

I tried to view the webcasts, in which some great academic minds debate what might be the most important issues of our contemporary society, but I couldn't get the video to work properly (I'm on a Mac, and I believe they use Windows Media Player or whatnot). Maybe you'll have better luck.

Another riveting lecture (no, seriously), is Naomi Wolf's discussion of American fascism and our current administration's echoes of previous dictatorships. It's quite well-reasoned and frighteningly enlightening. Instead of watching the latest episode of Lost or 24, watch this:

Corn Is the New Fast Food

Well, duh. Since the movies Fast Food Nation (and the book it was based on) and Super Size Me raised the ridiculously obvious point that we are what we eat (and what we eat is often crap), the American food chain has gone under the microscope macroscope. The most recent example would be Michael Pollan's recent success, The Omnivore's Dilemma, a book that eloquently and exhaustively traces three American food chains.

The first of those food chains was the mainstream industrial one (organic agriculture and hunting/gathering being the other two). Turns out the lifeblood pumping through our nation's veins isn't blood at all—it's corn. So you already knew that. Well, in case you'd like to know more, there will soon be a movie exposing all: King Corn looks to be the big screen answer to The Omnivore's Dilemma.

Eames on Film

[09.10.07]

These may only be interesting to extreme design dorks, (like my father, who, if I've got the story right, interned with Eames way back when).

Notice the references to male and female roles in the creation process (no, not that creation process):


Unveiling the new Eames chair:


[via Coudal]

Marketing Requires Research

Creative Director: Let's go with a cinema theme for the new Hennessey ads.
Copywriter: Sure, we can make the ad look like a movie poster...
Creative Director: What'll you call it?
Copywriter: How about "Lost Weekend"...it has a classy, luxurious devil-may-care feel...
Creative Director: Go with it.



Result: An ad for cognac referencing a movie about alcoholism. Oops!

[Via adfreak]

Solving the Non-Problem

Last night The Captain and I thought we'd watch a Netflix movie, but as soon as we slid American Hardcore out of its envelope, we knew it wasn't going to happen. The movie was so scratched and worn there was no way our DVD player would even recognize it. Luckily for us, we had other options; we ended up watching the very weird but strangely captivating Thumbsucker instead. But what of our first choice, which we'd been dying to see since it was released?

Rather than go through an arduous process of filling out a return form, getting authorization, and waiting on a replacement which may or may not suffer the same fate of the first, Netflix has a system that removes all possibility of further disappointment. It's brilliant in its simplicity.

All we did was hop online and indicate the disc was damaged. Today, a replacement is being mailed to us; Netflix doesn't even wait for the damaged disc to be returned. But the crowning glory of their solution to what has to be a common problem is this: the disc they are sending out is brand-spanking new. This means that there is zero chance we'll have the same problem happen twice, a calamity that may not destroy our relationship with the company but would certainly annoy the hell out of us.

Of course, it would be wonderful if quality control at the warehouses were such that they could catch every scratched disc before it ever went out in the first place. But I suspect that checking the playability of each of hundreds of thousands of DVDs before mailing would undermine one of the main draws of Netflix: quick turnaround. Instead, they make damn sure that a minor, once-in-a-while inconvenience never has a chance to blow up into an all-out pain in the butt. They solve the big problem before it ever happens. Smart move.

What can you do to think ahead and make sure the inevitable mistakes that happen to all of us now and then don't come back to haunt you forever?

Life Lessons/TV Lessons

Michael Beirut has posted a brilliant(ly hilarious) post over at Design Observer, titled "Everything I Know About Design I Learned From the Sopranos."

A taste:

On creative blocks:
"My advice? Put that thing down awhile, we go get our joints copped, and tomorrow the words'll come blowing out your ass."

Paulie's advice to frustrated amateur screenwriter Christopher is pretty much exactly the same as every book on creativity I've ever read: if you're struggling with a problem, put it aside and inspiration will come when you're not expecting it.

Just be warned: this is an HBO-rated post.