Brand Immersion: Fit Flpped

Heed the warnings? Who me? Come on.

I’m in shape.

Well at least my legs have always been in shape.

That’s what I thought when I got my new shoes home and ripped off the tags, cavalierly discarding them without paying any notice to the yellow one with the ominous black stripes and the word WARNING in bold caps.

Photo courtesy of www.cozyradio.com

Once I donned my Fit Flops, my feet started singing. Really. Well I mean if feet could sing that is. Mine were not just humming a little ditty. It was a full blown Hallelujah chorus.

So, after putting them on, I didn’t take them off for two weeks (except to sleep, and that was with some reluctance).

And then, it started. A nagging little pain in my lower back. But of course, I blamed that on Lisa D’s too soft bed at the Vineyard. I figured the pain would go away. But the nagging moved up to whining and I could no longer blame it on Lisa’s generosity, so I honed in on to the crap desk chair I sit in all day. After bending over and wincing in pain, I changed the chair but things continued to worsen। It finally dawned on me that somewhere I saw something about not overdoing it with the shoes.

So I went online and searched “lower back pain”+”Fit Flops”. And of course I found it. Fit Flops CURE lower back pain. So I read on about how, within the soft and supple soles that nurtured the soles (and the souls) of my feet, there is a wobble board designed to make the muscles in the buttocks twitch and work hard to produce the rock hard results we so desire.

I was twitching and twitching and my buttocks finally seized up like a block of concrete – taking my lower back with it.

How do I know all this?

With great reluctance, I left my sole caressing Fit Flops at home and have spent the last two days in my not so hip Birkenstocks.

My back is making a remarkably fast recovery but my feet are in mourning.

Never has their been as comfortable a shoe as my Fit Flops. But because I abused the privilege, and because I also value walking upright and sitting in a chair, I’m afraid the Flops of Fitness must be retired for the season. I’ll try again next spring – in moderation.

Brand Immersion: Nike Foundation Girl Effect

Nike Foundations asks for your support to help change a girl's life and, in the process, change the world. Compelling work from Wieden+Kennedy.

Brand Immersion: Particle Theory

I've been watching Ted Talks lately and am fascinated by the discussions of particles and particle theory. Tonight I heard Amy Tan speak about particles of truth and Brian Greene speak about particles (vibrating strings) that make up the universe - possibly the universal theory.

So I started thinking about universal theory and have begun trying to apply it to the idea of content and its relationship to the brands that sponsor it (advertising). This got me to thinking about the value of media, media properties, and massively distributed content. I've written a little bit about this in a few blog posts and in comments on other blogs including Jeff Jarvis' Buzz Machine.

Jeff recently wrote, "...I think newsrooms will need to be organized around topics or tags or stories because the notion of a section is as out of date as the Dewey Decimal System (hat tip to David Weinberger). Stories and topics become molecules that attract atoms: reporters, editors, witnesses, archives, commenters, and so on, all adding different elements to a greater understanding. Who brings that together? It’s not always the reporter or editor anymore. It can just as easily be the reader(s) now."

To which I responded, "...your observations of the press-sphere should also be a wake-up call to the publishing side of the business who have not yet embraced the vast opportunity associated with “particle theory”. When publishers realize that they are not selling “the page,” “the book,” or “the Web site” but the particles of content themselves, it will become clear that returning to profitability depends on their ability to create systems, processes and selling techniques that match advertiser supported revenue streams to content particles and not necessarily to the curated, branded environment [of a media property]. In this new model that fully embraces massively distributed content everyone wins. Advertisers associate their messages and brands with content that is most relevant; consumers encounter brands in context with content; creators (publishers) monetize not only their own distribution network, but the organic distribution network (long tail) of the content eco-system; and the long tail of distributors (the eco-system) gain some shared financial benefit for propelling the content particles to a broader audience."

As I think about this further, it seems that massively distributed content involves the breaking apart of media as we've traditionally viewed it. Instead of only monetizing blocks of content (media properties) where that content may be valuable for a fleeting time to the few who visit that place, value can be created or extended as the content breaks away from its bounded space. As content becomes an individual particle it can travel to, and live in many places. It can travel with bits of extremely relevant branding, advertising or sponsorship. Or it can attach to new places that have branding, advertising or sponsorship most relevant the fans of the new place.


To determine the value of content particles, I've started to line up a series of assumptions:

1. Content particles may extend active life (engagement or consumption) for longer periods of time.
2. Content particles reach more people over time.
3. Content particles ultimately reach more highly targeted audiences.

I'll be refining this theory over time as I continue to explore ways in which I consume content, desire to consume content, use content in my forays into the social Web, and observe my friends do the same.

What do you think?

Brand Immersion: Do and Do Some More

This gem from Wieden Kennedy London for Honda makes me proud to be a Honda owner. Its sweet, straightforward, inspiring and makes you think about Honda as a neighbor, a friend, and an instigator that you want to hang out with. Bravo to Tony, Kim and the gang in London for continuing the good work they started with Honda Grrrrr.

Brand Immersion: The Life of a Freelance Consultant

Thanks Linda Ziskind for uncovering this gem!

Brand Immersion: Bringing Ideas to Fruition

My friend Tamara Giltsoff from OzoLab passed on her copy of The Next Issue to me the other day. In it I found this short, rather poetic piece from Malcolm Poynton to be quite inspired...

Lost and Found
Challenges bringing ideas to fruition in a rapidly changing and unpredictable environment include: finding people naive enough not be be afraid; finding others experienced enough not to screw it up; finding people who know what questions to ask; finding others who know what questions not to answer; finding time offline to think; finding time online to explore; finding constants in an ever-changing space; finding ways to change the constants; finding open-minded clients; and finding ways to open clients' minds then, having found enough to make progress, remembering to ensure that everyone gets lost in the infinite fun of this golden age."

Brand Immersion: Tivo your YouTube

Reuters reported, on 12March that the lines between television and the computer continue to blur as TiVo engages in a partnership with YouTube to deliver Web videos directly to people's TVs.

I can't quite get my head around exactly how this will work yet, or what the revenue model will be. But I know that there are YouTube videos I'm excited to watch and share on a bigger screen.

What truly excites me about this partnership, however, is the recognition by both YouTube and Tivo of their primary mission as information distributors - without boundaries.

Brands that recognize the power of massively distributed content, beyond their traditional boundaries, will reap great rewards. More specifically, attaching revenue directly to content (particles), not only to a Web site or magazine (place), dramatically expands revenue potential. Good content particles become massively distributed and consumed, and the revenue associated with this content particle increases in tandem. Advertisers and sponsors are able to pick and choose their content particles to create more relevant associations between their brand and their message and the content itself. It winds up being a winning formula for the publisher, distributor, advertiser and consumer. And that's just plain good business.