David Burn

Webisodes are all the rage for brands wanting to connect with customers via original content, but what if the customers in question aren't wired into high speed Internet, or predisposed to watch content on the Web? According to Ad Age, Ford Motor Co. has some of these customers in rural Argentina and the brand found a compelling way to reach them.

Tapping into Latin America's literary tradition of magic realism, Ford Motor Co. is bringing wondrous tales along with trucks to little-used theaters in rural Argentina. Ford created a website where people could post the stories, legends and fables passed down in the oral tradition of the countryside, similar to the way a Ford Ranger may be handed from one family member to another, said Pablo Alvarez Travieso, JWT's other co-chief creative director. From more than 1,000 tales submitted, 10 were shortlisted, and a final 3 were chosen to be transformed into 25-minute plays by playwrights hired for the job. Ford and JWT produced the plays and took them to four towns in the province of Buenos Aires ranging in size from 35,000 to 170,000 people. Local Ford dealers helped bring in the audience, with an average of 500 to 800 people, to watch all three plays in a single performance. "It's a very expensive way of reaching people, more expensive than a TV spot, but it's a high-quality contact we needed to have," Ricardo Flaminni, Ford's marketing manager said of Ford's foray into rural theater. "And we performed very well, both in top-of-mind and sales."

I can't overstate how happy I am to see this type of campaign from Ford. Powerful brands like Ford can bring so much more than a pitch to the table, and in this case they have.

FITC, which puts on design and technology events, thought to remind us ad people to keep on growin', or else... <object height="170" width="400"><param name="allowfullscreen" value="true"/><param name="allowscriptaccess" value="always"/><param name="movie" value="http://vimeo.com/moogaloop.swf?clip_id=10251808&amp;server=vimeo.com&amp;show_title=1&amp;show_byline=1&amp;show_portrait=0&amp;color=&amp;fullscreen=1"/><embed allowfullscreen="true" allowscriptaccess="always" height="170" src="http://vimeo.com/moogaloop.swf?clip_id=10251808&amp;server=vimeo.com&amp;show_title=1&amp;show_byline=1&amp;show_portrait=0&amp;color=&amp;fullscreen=1" type="application/x-shockwave-flash" width="400"></embed></object>

The Last Advertising Agency On Earth from FITC on Vimeo.

<object height="295" width="480"><param name="movie" value="http://www.youtube.com/v/ZJFTC9C_IBk&amp;hl=en_US&amp;fs=1&amp;color1=0xe1600f&amp;color2=0xfebd01"/><param name="allowFullScreen" value="true"/><param name="allowscriptaccess" value="always"/><embed allowfullscreen="true" allowscriptaccess="always" height="295" src="http://www.youtube.com/v/ZJFTC9C_IBk&amp;hl=en_US&amp;fs=1&amp;color1=0xe1600f&amp;color2=0xfebd01" type="application/x-shockwave-flash" width="480"></embed></object> Tug McTighe of American Copywriter likes the new book, Rework, from 37Signals. He says it's "absolutely the best book on making your business/creativity thrive (that) I've read since Seth Godin's Purple Cow."

Doug Lowell of ID Branding was one of the first people to see my book fledgling book back in the spring of 1995, when he was an ACD at AKA Advertising and Saas. He was also one of a handful of people in the business that made an impression on my developing ad mind. So I had to look the man up when I returned to Stumptown. Doug and I recently had lunch at a Chinese restaurant in downtown Portland. We picked up the conversation after 15 years as naturally as can be--I guess that's what happens when two guys who write poetry and ads sit down mid-day over spicy food. What follows is not the transcript from that luncheon. But it touches on some of the things we talked about that day and expands from there. Enjoy... Q. I understand Andrew Keller of CP+B once worked for you? Did you see greatness in his future? A. Yes, I actually did see Andrew's brilliance and leadership early on. I was fortunate to hire him straight out of Portfolio Center and coax him to Portland - he and his lovely wife Helen. I think I told Andrew six months into working with him that he was going to be a creative director one day. I haven't said that to many juniors that I can remember. It wasn't just his gift at concepting and executing ads that I saw. It was his willingness to be a leader and his amazingly positive attitude. The man just saw the world as a good place, and saw every assignment as an opportunity for awesomeness, no matter how lowly it was. And he was unselfish in urging others to achieve awesomeness. He also was crystal clear about his objectives, which were to do as much good work as possible and to go to places where he could do even better work. He actually left working with me to go straight to Crispin, and found his home. But he leveraged every opportunity I could give him to build his book to get him there. Q. Is it harder, or easier, to find great talent today than it was back when we first met in 1995? A. It's actually just as easy as it's ever been. In fact, I am amazed at the quality of juniors (creative, account, strategy) that we're finding. The University of Oregon is doing an incredible job under Deb Morrison of cultivating a new breed of creatives - people who are comfortable playing multiple roles. We have one young man from that program, Michael, who is a copywriter who knows CS4 and is becoming a master Flash developer under the guidance of Erik Falat, our Interactive Creative Director. I am blown away by the range of his creative capabilities. So I believe brilliant people are all around us today. It's a very exciting time for our business. Q. You've been a principal at several agencies in your career and are today at ID Branding. What's the hardest thing about owning and managing an agency? A. What isn't hard about it? It's all the stuff we creatives never wanted to deal with, like paying the bills, laying people off, negotiating leases and worrying about payroll. But someone has to do it, or there would be no agencies. On the other hand, it's a chance to shape a place to fit your own vision - if you have the right business partners. It's a chance to try out all your own theories about how things should be done. That's the big attraction. Both at Paris France and now at ID Branding I feel the opportunity to be on the front of the wave, rather than watching the wave from behind as it rushes toward shore without me (to use a surfing metaphor). One thing I've learned is that growing a successful business is an art unto itself. And it must be approached with all the humility and dedication of any other art. It's not easy. My hat's off to those who've done it well. Q. Obviously, you've been witness to the rise of digital, as we all have. And you've had to adapt as we all have. What's been the most interesting thing about this evolutionary process to you? A. Digital has been one of the greatest gifts given to our business. The whole concept of "interactive" is, in one word, where we've been going for quite a long time. Because people want to interact with brands, not just consume messages from them. I'm so happy I was part of Paris France, and was able to learn the intricate world of interactive. It's such a different game. It's like moving from chess to three-dimensional chess. I had such amazing people around me that it was an incredible experience, a great education. And it has absolutely transformed my whole approach to brand building. I don't think I'd be nearly as useful in this business if I hadn't added had that experience. Q. You're a writer and a photographer. Writing's not a visual art, but it does rely on mental images. Is that what good writing is to you? A visual narrative? A. I came to advertising after having been seriously immersed in writing poetry for 13 years. Advertising forced me to become a much more visual thinker. I had to learn to not just think in words anymore. What a gift that has been. It has deeply affected my photography. Whether writing is narrative or lyric, it has always been about casting images upon the reader's mind. Good writing is so much about finding an appropriate voice to meld with those images and to shape them as well. I think a good copywriter always needs to be a visual thinker, but the actual writing itself is so much more about conjuring a presence - the presence of the brand. It's not really about narrative as much as it is about the presence. Q. Let's talk about Portland. It's known as a creative class city, but it's also an industrial port city and a city with a lot of poor people. Is this a good place to do business? A. All cities have a lot of poor people. That's part of what makes them cities. And they all have some remnants of industry, which is often what makes them visually interesting. Portland is a great place to have a business, but it's not always a great place to do business, mostly because an agency depends upon proximity to corporate headquarters, and we've got darned few of those. The biggest challenge in doing business in Portland is how removed it is from the real financial and business centers of our country. Sure, our new virtual world is supposed to change all that, but the fact remains people want face time with their agencies and like the idea that they could jump in a cab or on the subway or walk a handful of blocks and be there. That's why there's only one Wieden & Kennedy when so many other agencies here have tried to be the next Wieden. Dan told me a long time ago, and I'm sure he's told others, that their model is completely unreproducible. No good creative agency has ever broken through the ceiling of, say, growing to more than fifty people. And once they do, they slide back. Most are quite small. It's the cost doing business in this gorgeous, wonderful city. Q. How has the agency business in Portland changed over the years? A. I have seen so many agencies come and go. Really good ones, too. I quickly become an old fogy when I reminisce about Cole and Weber, Moffatt Rosenthal, AKA Advertising and Sass, Nerve. What I'm seeing now is the sprouting of really interesting interactive agencies. And I'm hoping to see some really successful multi-disciplinary agencies that draw people from design, advertising, strategy and interactive. That's what we're trying to build. But again, the challenge of doing it in Portland is very real. Q. Are awards shows important for the advancement of one's career and the agency's cause? Or are they a waste of time, money and attention? A. Awards are still important. As long as big agencies look for a long string of awards on a resume, they will continue to be important. And as long as clients have their hearts set aflutter by thrilling creative, they will thrive. Award shows are morphing to keep up with the times, so we're seeing a lot more emphasis on brilliant thinking no matter the medium. And they're important in helping to set the bar for all of us. Q. What do you look for in a client? Or put another way, what makes a client great? A. Wow. I have thought so much about this. I can boil it down to one word: confidence. What goes into making a confident client is complex, really. It's some combination of knowledge and experience plus innate leadership plus courage plus trust. The best clients I've ever had have the same qualities: they listen and they're decisive. They also know they need an agency to be successful. So many clients just aren't so sure about that. And, ultimately, the good ones have the C-suite backing them up and supporting their decisions, which is the only way to have confidence. That's about as common as a bear that can sing opera. Q. What responsibility do we have as agents for our clients' messages? Is it all about doing their bidding, or do we owe the public something (more than a pitch) when we ask for their undivided attention? A. We owe our audiences and our clients the same thing, in my mind. The absolutely truest embodiment of a brand's values conveyed through a system of meaning. We owe our clients the best possible counsel in how their brand should live and operate in the world. And we owe our audiences substance. It's so much more than messages. It's so much more than an ad or campaign. I believe we are meaning makers. We make meaning on behalf of the brand and on behalf of the audience that brand serves. We owe both client and audience absolute honesty and sincerity and significant, useful meaning. At ID Branding, we talk about growing brands that operate like a culture, in the anthropological sense of that word. And cultures are "a system of meaning embodied in symbols," says Geertz. That's what people want today, at least according to the anthropologists. They want meaning they can use in the shaping of their own identities. Brands have become part of the symbolic landscape. Q. Is the concept of "undivided attention" even real in today's over-saturated media environment? A. No attention is undivided. I don't think such a thing has ever been possible. But if what we do is meaningful, people will recognize it and embrace it. We remember what matters to us. We embrace the brands that are in sync with our values. We love what we love. It's all about creating presence where people are looking for it. It's all about being where they want us to be and delivering meaning. Q. What's the last great book you read? A. All the way through? I have so many books started but unfinished, books I might return to a year or two later. Right now I'm reading Grant McCracken's Chief Culture Officer, The Book of Questions by Edmond Jabès (poetry), The Zohar (Jewish mysticism), Michael Palmer's The Promises of Glass (poetry), and Doug DuBois' All the Days and Nights (photography). That might be a better picture of my silly reality than talking about the last book because I'm not good at going in order or finishing. Q. How do you feel about this increasingly loud call for metrics? Is it good for creativity or mindless misdirection? A. Metrics are going to be more and more important, and I think that's good. Measuring the impact our work is having is crucial in understanding reality. Now, that's different from concept testing, which is merely cowardice. And it's different from quantitative-only measurement, which is a foolishly rational approach to an emotionally-driven business. But I think agencies should be proposing new and inventive metrics to our clients, which hopefully will help us earn a piece of the benefits we help to create. Metrics need to be a sincere search for understanding, not just some formula that makes the linear thinkers happy or turns this business into a science. It's not a science. As my friend Thom Walters always says, people make decisions based on emotion and then justify those decisions rationally. So let's not oversimplify the complex relationship between humans and brands, but instead let's find a way to comprehensively understand how what we're doing is being received and the consequences it might be generating.

Writing in Ad Age, Tom Hinkes, former marketing director and current principal consultant at OutBranding, says "our biggest consumer brands are now managed by nerds." It's not a compliment.

Great brand marketers are comfortable with ambiguity. They realize marketing is a balancing act -- it's numbers and detail, but it's also flair and vision. It's qualitative and quantitative; analysis and intuition; perspiration and inspiration. Great marketing requires the balance of both sides of the brain. But the balance has been lost. Great marketers are visionaries, not bean counters. They succeed by defying conventional wisdom. They see over the near horizon, envisioning products and ideas long before the average consumer even senses a need for them. Nothing captures this principle better than the adage, "If Edison had done market research, he would have invented bigger candles."

Of course, to defy conventional wisdom is to take risks. And risks are scary to take, even in the bets of times. This is not the best of times.

You may have heard, Iain Tait is leaving Poke/London for Wieden+Kennedy/Portland. In his new position Tait will be top digital dog at an agency reared on TV, and one that's been slow to pick up the digital ball. If this article by Tait in New Media Age is any indication, he wants to bring new ways of working on ideas to the global super shop.

If we want to create provocative, challenging and culturally relevant digital work, we need to smash the hen-house and go free-range. We need to embrace the un-team and the un-process. We need to borrow from the places where real innovation is occurring: the world of hack-days, collaboration, open-sourcing, ring-fenced R&D time and incubators. Clinging to outdated idea-farming methods just because they're reliable and predictable is a surefire route to extinction.

The "hen house" is Tait's metaphor for the place where copywriters and art directors lay their golden eggs. His argument is that you can't just bring technologists into this sacrosanct area without a dust up. Instead, you need to draw the hens out from the comforts of their coop and show them the expansiveness of the entire farm. It'll be interesting to see how far Tait gets with some of the most entrenched "hens" in the business.

I'll readily admit I'd never heard of Brian Solis when I received a copy of his new book, Engage: The Complete Guide for Brands and Businesses to Build, Cultivate, and Measure Success in the New Web. But I suppose when Ashton Kutcher writes the foreword to your book, like he did here, you can do what Solis does and describe yourself as "one of the most prominent thought leaders in social media" as well as a "digital analyst and visionary." I've read enough marketing and new media books to know that when something is considered a "complete guide," it won't be considered complete in, say, a year or two from now. But Engage is an impressive book; it's a deep dive into all the ways that social media is being used by brands, companies and organizations right now. There's an extensive "toolbox" of categories, instruments, and sites that serve the major components of social media. There are discussions of how to find influencers, the "rules of engagement," ways to measure effectiveness, and the promises and perils of the whole thing. Quite a number of topics are addressed in the book and that's no easy feat. Be warned: if you're looking for how social media integrates into a more traditional marketing plan, this isn't your best bet. And Solis is a passionate advocate of social media, so you're also not going to get a pros-and-cons debate about to what degree brands should use social media (which is still something many clients are still wondering). But if you have a client who's very left-brained and analytical, or if you're looking for a very methodical trip through the world of social media as it stands in 2010, Engage is a great place to start. Special thanks to John Wiley & Sons who provided me a copy for review.

South By Southwest Interactive wrapped up on Tuesday, and there's mixed opinion on the conference's enduring value. Jolie O'Dell, who just announced she is leaving her job at Read Write Web, says SXSW sucks and she won't be going back for more.

This year, I spent most of my time trying to avoid being harassed, maligned, groped, ogled and threatened by the masses of people - I'm hearing 40% more than last year - who are holding badges. This show isn't fun, and I won't be coming back. My greatest concern at the outset was the relative lack of truly technical content. I haven't even seen that many startups here this year, and even fewer developers. And non-technical people aren't here to learn; they're here for self-congratulation and mutual masturbation. People I've never heard of are referring to themselves as Twitter celebrities and generally making me ill.

I love it when people speak their minds and say the things that need to be said. SouthBy is a cluster fuck. And when there are too many people in one space, human nature is such that a "rats in a cage" mentality takes hold. Obviously, we're not at our best in these instances. Steve Hall of Adrants has an entirely different take on the subject.

But where else can you physically hang with so many people in the marketing/interactive/advertising/social/geek space all at once? Evan Williams. Kevin Rose. Bob Garfield (yes, I include him), Justine Ezarik, David Armano, Brian Solis, Henry Copeland, Gary Vaynerchuk, Chris Brogan, Violet Blue, Rick Webb, Ze Frank, Jason Fried, Guy Kawasaki, Pete Cashmore, Marshall Kirkpatrick, Jeremiah Owyang, Benjamin Palmer, Adam Pash, Jeff Pulver, Ian Schafer, Ariel Waldman, Adam Wallace. And, yea, Ashton Kutcher.

In other words, there's no need to sweat a five day party with A-listers. It's all good, and Hall's got photographic evidence of this fact. Lots of it. But clearly, thousands of people spend thousands of dollars to be in Austin so they can learn to do their jobs better. That is the nature of a conference. The socializing is icing, not the cake. Jay Baer says "SXSW needs a much better vetting process if it's going to retain even a modicum of educational value." And O'Dell mentioned in her post that she was upset she that she couldn't find any bloggable content. When there's no there there, SXSW becomes an adult version of Spring Break, and that's kind of hard to justify to one's bosses and/or accountant. For yet another take, here's what two students from Wharton think: <object height="295" width="480"><param name="movie" value="http://www.youtube.com/v/6jYnHcvKrkc&amp;hl=en_US&amp;fs=1&amp;color1=0x234900&amp;color2=0x4e9e00"/><param name="allowFullScreen" value="true"/><param name="allowscriptaccess" value="always"/><embed allowfullscreen="true" allowscriptaccess="always" height="295" src="http://www.youtube.com/v/6jYnHcvKrkc&amp;hl=en_US&amp;fs=1&amp;color1=0x234900&amp;color2=0x4e9e00" type="application/x-shockwave-flash" width="480"></embed></object>

Google makes running your company's ads, or your clients' ads, on national TV look easy. So easy, in fact, that it raised the suspicions of Slate's ad critic, Seth Stevenson. <object height="295" width="480"><param name="movie" value="http://www.youtube.com/v/ukVUn22H7tg&amp;hl=en_US&amp;fs=1&amp;color1=0x234900&amp;color2=0x4e9e00"/><param name="allowFullScreen" value="true"/><param name="allowscriptaccess" value="always"/><embed allowfullscreen="true" allowscriptaccess="always" height="295" src="http://www.youtube.com/v/ukVUn22H7tg&amp;hl=en_US&amp;fs=1&amp;color1=0x234900&amp;color2=0x4e9e00" type="application/x-shockwave-flash" width="480"></embed></object> Stevenson wanted to take Google TV ads for a spin. So, Slate created a bizarre TV ad that advertises nothing in particular, and directs viewers to Vcantellyouwhy.com (in order to track visitors and get a sense for ROI). Stevenson set a budget of $1,300 total, selected four target networks and time slots, and then sat back to see what would occur. What happened is the spot ran a total of 54 times on national television, including seven times during Glenn Beck episodes on Fox. The ad reached 1.3 million people and, of those, over 1,000 actually visited Slate's landing page. All for the cost of drinks, or a ball game, with the client.

I keep finding articles on how big Google is, and what a threat Google presents to competition. By competition, the complainers often mean Microsoft, an odd thing considering Microsoft's monopoly on the desktop and the legal troubles the company has faced as a consequence. Microsoft got Google's attention in Ohio recently, when a routine collections battle with a small Internet company resulted in a counter-suit citing monopolistic abuses. But what really caught Google's attention was the Internet site's legal counsel: It was Charles "Rick" Rule, long the chief outside counsel on competition issues for Google archrival Microsoft Corp. "It's become clear that our competitors are scouring court dockets around the world looking for complaints against Google into which they can inject themselves, learn more about our business practices, and use that information to develop a broader antitrust complaint against us," said Google spokesman, Adam Kovacevich. <object height="180" id="wsj_fp" width="452"><param name="movie" value="http://s.wsj.net/media/swf/microPlayer.swf"/><param name="allowFullScreen" value="true"/><param name="allowscriptaccess" value="always"/><param name="microflashPlayer" value="videoGUID={9B7BDBA0-9C6F-4A69-9EFB-881FC7619468}&amp;playerid=1000&amp;plyMediaEnabled=1&amp;configURL=http://wsj.vo.llnwd.net/o28/players/&amp;autoStart=false"/><embed bgcolor="#FFFFFF" height="180" name="microflashPlayer" src="http://s.wsj.net/media/swf/microPlayer.swf" type="application/x-shockwave-flash" width="452"></embed></object> In other tech titan versus tech titan news, Brian Morrissey of Adweek reports that Microsoft used a speaking slot provided by the Association of National Advertisers to open a broad assault on Google, accusing the Web giant of using its market clout to the detriment of advertisers. One of Mirosoft's main complaints--that advertisers can't export their Google Adwords data--interestingly enough, has no merit. "As we have repeatedly made clear, advertisers can easily export their ad campaign data out of AdWords into competing ad platforms like Microsoft and Yahoo, both through CSV export and the AdWords API," Kovacevich said. "In fact, both Microsoft and Yahoo offer their advertisers explicit tips and tools for exporting Google campaign data into their platforms." Providing a little perspective, Tom Foremski, writing for ZDNet says Google owns 50 data centers around the world; it builds its own servers; it operates its own backbones that shuttle huge amounts of data across the world; it develops its own software for managing all of its data; and it keeps banks of servers in the data centers of ISPs so that it can cache data closer to delivery. "The competition between Google, Microsoft, Yahoo and other large content players has long since moved beyond just who has the better videos or search. The competition for Internet dominance is now as much about infrastructure -- raw data center computing power and about how efficiently (i.e. quickly and cheaply) you can deliver content to the consumer," writes Craig Labovitz, one of the experts Foremski references. If you step out of the specifics of this story and think for a moment about the two brands, Google and Microsoft, they evoke such different thoughts and feelings. They mean totally different things. Google is a company we find endlessly fascinating for what they've already accomplished and for what they're working on next. Microsoft, on the other hand, is what? A behemoth has been desperate to hold on, by any means possible?

Gary Vaynerchuk was prank called at 5:00 am while in Austin for SXSW. Listen to how he handles it. The dude is quick. <object height="295" width="480"><param name="movie" value="http://www.youtube.com/v/zdoFOXGBJGQ&amp;hl=en_US&amp;fs=1&amp;color1=0x234900&amp;color2=0x4e9e00"/><param name="allowFullScreen" value="true"/><param name="allowscriptaccess" value="always"/><embed allowfullscreen="true" allowscriptaccess="always" height="295" src="http://www.youtube.com/v/zdoFOXGBJGQ&amp;hl=en_US&amp;fs=1&amp;color1=0x234900&amp;color2=0x4e9e00" type="application/x-shockwave-flash" width="480"></embed></object> Vaynerchuk says, "What I think is interesting here is we now live in a very transparent world and every interaction maybe recorded. The question is, if I handled this differently would it have impacted how some may look at me?" The video was posted to YouTube by lalawag, a Los Angeles-based tech site. When I watched the video for the first time, I thought Vaynerchuk was in on it, but from his commentary above, it sounds like he wasn't. BTW, Crush It is Vaynerchuk's new book.

Red Bull's new $220 million Major League Soccer arena in Harrison, N.J., opens this weekend when the New York Red Bulls line up in an exhibition match with Santos FC. According to The Wall Street Journal, the arena, paid for without a loan, represents the biggest and most visible foreign investment ever made in professional soccer in the U.S. Red Bull is a privately held company based in Austria.

"As soon as we decide to take part in a sport, we either do it properly or we don't do it at all," says Red Bull founder and Chief Executive Dietrich Mateschitz, who also owns soccer teams in Austria and Germany. Within the stadium, the company's logo--two bulls butting horns in front of a yellow sun--is emblazoned on the lower-deck seats. Where some companies might have plastered billboards throughout the building, Mr. Mateschitz says the idea is to build his brand through the quality of the experience the arena offers.

Red Bull also rocked the Winter Olympics this year with the creation of Shaun White's private half pipe, deep in the San Juan Mountains of SW Colorado. When you go to RedBull.com and try to ascertain just how far the brand's commitment to sports marketing goes, it's overwhelming. The brand sponsors Street Style, Air Races, Cliff Diving, Skiing, Skateboarding and much more. What the brand doesn't concern itself with is traditional advertising. When you can successfully create experiences for people that they like, want to repeat and share with friends, the need for traditional advertising kind of flies out the window. PREVIOUSLY ON ADPULP: First It Was Stadiums, Now It's The Actual Team

SocialBuy is a new "social buying" site offering vouchers for discounts on luxury products and services often from retailers that have never before discounted -- but now must in order to stay afloat in this economy. Naturally, the company wants to use social media to spread its social buying message. <object height="295" width="480"><param name="movie" value="http://www.youtube.com/v/Hf27JCZHFQE&amp;hl=en_US&amp;fs=1&amp;color1=0xe1600f&amp;color2=0xfebd01"/><param name="allowFullScreen" value="true"/><param name="allowscriptaccess" value="always"/><embed allowfullscreen="true" allowscriptaccess="always" height="295" src="http://www.youtube.com/v/Hf27JCZHFQE&amp;hl=en_US&amp;fs=1&amp;color1=0xe1600f&amp;color2=0xfebd01" type="application/x-shockwave-flash" width="480"></embed></object> That was interesting... This is how it all works. SocialBuy negotiates "unbelievable local deals," (currently only in San Francisco and Los Angeles, but more cities will be coming online soon). But the deals are only good if a pre-determined number of people opt in. Here, take a look at today's deal in Los Angeles... The retailer's interests are protected through volume, which SocialBuy brings to the table via the social nature of the Web.

<object height="385" width="480"><param name="movie" value="http://www.youtube.com/v/lpypeLL1dAs&amp;hl=en_US&amp;fs=1&amp;color1=0x5d1719&amp;color2=0xcd311b"/><param name="allowFullScreen" value="true"/><param name="allowscriptaccess" value="always"/><embed allowfullscreen="true" allowscriptaccess="always" height="385" src="http://www.youtube.com/v/lpypeLL1dAs&amp;hl=en_US&amp;fs=1&amp;color1=0x5d1719&amp;color2=0xcd311b" type="application/x-shockwave-flash" width="480"></embed></object> According to The New York Times, the new Kotex campaign from the New York office of JWT is ruffling some network feathers. Apparently, three different networks informed JWT it could not use the word "vagina" in the ads, which led the agency back to the editing booth. "It's very funny because the whole spot is about censorship," Merrie Harris, global business director at JWT said. "The whole category has been very euphemistic, or paternalistic even, and we're saying, enough with the euphemisms, and get over it. Tampon is not a dirty word, and neither is vagina." Organic launched the digital portion of the campaign at U by Kotex.

Ed Hamilton, a copywriter in London, put his CV on Google Maps, an act which led to 15,000 views in two days. Here's another one from Carren O'Keefe. [via Michael Lebowitz]

Serial entrepreneur, MarkAndreessen, thinks print media companies need to take a page from the Spanish Empire’s playbook and make real their commitment to digital.

Here’s Tech Crunch’s take on Andreessen’s POV:

Legend has it that when Cortes landed in Mexico in the 1500s, he ordered his men to burn the ships that had brought them there to remove the possibility of doing anything other than going forward into the unknown. Marc Andreessen has the same advice for old media companies: “Burn the boats.”

In particular, he was talking about print media such as newspapers and magazines, and his longstanding recommendation that they should shut down their print editions and embrace the Web wholeheartedly. “You gotta burn the boats,” he told me, “you gotta commit.” His point is that if traditional media companies don’t burn their own boats, somebody else will.

I like the imagery Andreessen’s using, but instead of burning the boats, it might be smart to keep all oars in the water, as it were. It’s not like there won’t be printed newspapers and magazines in the future. There will be. They might become rather expensive–as they are expensive to produce and distribute–but they’ll be available.

On a related note, here’s Grace Potter and Joe Satriani covering “Cortez the Killer” by Neil Young.

There’s an increasingly tiresome argument being made in the corporate suits, government offices and newsrooms of Portland, Oregon. The argument goes like this: Portland doesn’t have enough top tier talent to properly grow a company, nor enough venture capital.

According to Mike Rogoway of The Oregonian, three Portland companies—Jive Software, Ensequence and SurveyMonkey—all moved their top executives out of state last year.

“It’s not about Portland,” says Dave Goldberg, SurveyMonkey’s new California-based chief executive. “It’s really just about the Bay Area.”

“My job is to shepherd this company to be a great company, and if we can’t do it in Portland, we’re going to do it someplace else,” Dave Hersh, Jive Software’s CEO, said last fall. “I’m disappointed we weren’t able to pull it all off in Portland.”

Jive and Ensequence maintain Portland headquarters, and all three companies have retained sizable contingents here. Still, last year’s executive exodus was especially dispiriting in the context of Oregon’s wilted economy.

In related news, Laura Gunderson of The Oregonian reports that Lucy Activewear is moving from Portland to San Leandro, Calif., eliminating as many as 95 corporate and distribution center jobs here. Lucy, it’s important to note, isn’t locally owned.

In addition to the lack of available capital and talent beef, Oregonians also suffer from rumors that we don’t work hard and that our taxes on corporations are too high. I’ll leave the tax argument to others more qualified to speak, but the work ethic gripe I’ll gladly mangle. First, the argument is false. This state and all the great companies, schools and cultural institutions in it weren’t put here by a genie. They were put here by the pioneering, passionate and deeply committed citizens of the Beaver State.

Plus, too many places with a notable work ethic are soulless husks of a city. I don’t want to be part of that. Do you? Work is a central aspect of life in Oregon, as it is elsewhere, but we strive for balance here. The arts are important here; we like to eat amazing food and drink local wine and beer; and we go camping, hiking, skiing, etc.

PREVIOUSLY ON BURNIN’: Does The Northwest Have The Right Climate for Business?

Good Magazine is sharing a particularly good idea here.

Having lived in San Francisco, I know what a pain it is to park there. Sometimes you go round and around for half an hour to an hour just to find an empty spot, which is insanity, but that doesn’t stop it from happening.

Dynamic parking meter pricing and availability is technology that’s solving an actual need. Thank you Streetline. So many of the tech developments that grab the media’s attention are inconsequential in the grand scheme. For instance any news about Facebook is completely wasted on me.

For most Americans polar bears are animals they see from time to time in the zoo or maybe on a PBS special. In other words, the polar bear is totally remote, whereas the things that need to be fueled with oil–one’s car, one’s home, one’s business–are all quite near and dear. Hence, how much do we really care about the plight of the polar bear or what happens way way up there in Alaska? The answer to that rhetorical question is, of course, not enough.

Frances Beinecke, President of Natural Resources Defense Council (NRDC), reminded me in an email that this year is the 50th Anniversary of the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge (ANWR). Sadly, her occasion for doing so wasn’t a party announcement, but a grave letter of concern, asking for help now that Interior Secretary Ken Salazar has given Shell the green light begin exploratory drilling in the area. Because what we care about as a nation, now as always, is the discovery and removal of natural resources.

According to The Guardian:

The Minerals Management Service, part of the federal Interior Department, yesterday gave Shell the green light to begin exploratory wells off the north coast of Alaska in an Arctic area that is home to large numbers of endangered bowhead whales and polar bears, as well as walruses, ice seals and other species. The permission would run from July to October next year, though Shell has promised to suspend operations from its drill ship from late August when local Inuit people embark on subsistence hunting.

Environmentalists condemned the decision to allow drilling, saying it would generate industrial levels of noise in the water and pollute both the air and surrounding water. Rebecca Noblin, an Alaskan specialist with the conservation group the Centre for Biological Diversity, said: “We’re disappointed to see the Obama administration taking decisions that will threaten the Arctic. It might as well have been the Bush administration.”

That’s damning criticism and fans of The President might bristle at the suggestion. But facts are facts.

In related news, Willamette Week recently ran an article that asked people who supported Obama for President what they think now, one year into his run. Lawyer and peace activist, John Bradach, isn’t pleased.

I was disappointed when he adopted the war team that Bush had left in place. For Obama to take those guys on, he really has allowed himself to be maneuvered into adopting those policies. And that’s not why I voted for him. Now I’m really disappointed, more than cautiously disappointed.

I do not want to hear Barack Obama justifying war, period. I am tired of wasting American kids on that war and on that policy, which is not going to win and will just be an indefinite commitment of American blood and resources.

Obama promised change, but change isn’t easy to implement in Washington, DC. But there’s more to it than that. Policy wise, change was always a false promise from Obama, a centrist Democrat.

Obama has been building consensus since his days on the Harvard Law Review, and he’s not about to veer from that practice now. Yet to truly change the way things are, the art of compromise itself needs to be compromised.

How has the Internet changed the way you think? That’s a huge question for our time and it’s the question Edge.org put in front on 167 world-class scientists, artists, and creative thinkers. Their range of answers is a deep well that one can dip into time and again, like a book of Shakespeare’s sonnets.

To get a taste for some of the thinking, please sample these small bits…

From Howard Rheingold:

Crap detection — Hemingway’s name for what digital librarians call credibility assessment — is another essential literacy. If all schoolchildren could learn one skill before they go online for the first time, I think it should be the ability to find the answer to any question and the skills necessary to determine whether the answer is accurate or not.

From Douglas Rushkoff:

The Internet pushes us all toward the immediate. The now. Every inquiry is to be answered right away, and every fact or idea is only as fresh as the time it takes to refresh a page.

And as a result, speaking for myself, the Internet makes me mean. Resentful. Short-fused. Reactionary.

From Kevin Kelly:

In fact the propensity of the Internet to diminish our attention is overrated. I do find that smaller and smaller bits of information can command the full attention of my over-educated mind.

From George Dyson:

We used to be kayak builders, collecting all available fragments of information to assemble the framework that kept us afloat. Now, we have to learn to become dugout-canoe builders, discarding unneccessary information to reveal the shape of knowledge hidden within.

From Paul Kedrosky:

If we know anything about knowledge, about innovation, and therefore about coming up with big deep thoughts, it is that it is cumulative, an accretive process of happening upon, connecting, and assembling, like an infinite erector set, not just a few pretty I-beams strewn about on a concrete floor.

From Paul Saffo:

Back in the mid-1700s, Samuel Johnson observed that there were two kinds of knowledge: that which you know, and that which you know where to get. The Internet has changed our thinking, but if it is to be a change for the better, we must add a third kind of knowledge to Johnson’s list — the knowledge of what matters. Knowing what matters is more than mere relevance. It is the skill of asking questions that have purpose, that lead to larger understandings.

From Clay Shirky:

This shock of inclusion, where professional media gives way to participation by two billion amateurs (a threshold we will cross this year) means that average quality of public thought has collapsed; when anyone can say anything any time, how could it not? If all that happens from this influx of amateurs is the destruction of existing models for producing high-quality material, we would be at the beginning of another Dark Ages.

So it falls to us to make sure that isn’t all that happens.

Of course, we all have our own essays to write.

I started using a computer to type up my college papers in 1983. But it wasn’t until 1995 that I started using email and even then, I used it sparingly. For me, 1997 was the year when the information revolution swept me up in its fast moving tide. Which means I’ve only been thinking inside this particular framework of networked machines for 13 years. Fundamentally, has it altered the way my brain works? I don’t know, but I do know my habits have changed radically. While I read fewer books now, my overall volume of reading and writing (and thinking) has increased dramatically. I now spend many hours almost every day reading, writing and thinking. I’d like to think that’s a good thing, although I’m keenly aware of the need for balance.

More than a century of industrial use has resulted in Willamette River sediments being contaminated with many hazardous substances, such as heavy metals, polychlorinated biphenyls (PCBs), polynuclear aromatic hydrocarbons (PAH), dioxin/furans, and pesticides. This far-from-green reality led a 10-mile stretch of the Willamette to be classified as a Superfund site by the Environmental Protect Agency in 2000.

This month Oregon Business is running a feature on the Superfund situation. It’s a topic all civic-minded Portlanders need to get up to speed on, because our economic future is tied directly to our willingness and ability to clean up the river and put sustainable practices into place.

As with most things, we need to know our history if we’re going to find a route out of the mess we’re in and refrain from repeating past mistakes.

Portland was built on the Willamette River, and the city’s 150-year history has forever altered that body of water. The West Coast’s first navigation channel enabled timber and grain exports starting in the 1850s. The railroad followed in the 1880s. After a lull during the Depression years, the harbor shifted into full gear during World War II, as workers built Liberty Ships for the Navy and rail cars for the Soviet Union.

Since the war years, healthy business clusters have developed in international trade, ship repair and metals manufacturing. Little thought was given to the ecological health of the river until the 1970s, when Gov. Tom McCall campaigned against pollution in the Willamette and spearheaded efforts to clean up Oregon’s defining waterway. But by then much of the damage had been done. It was just a matter of time before the pollution bill came due.

Oregon Business does a nice job of showing readers just how large that bill is. According to a 2008 report paid for by the Portland Development Commission, failing to redevelop key harbor properties such as the Arkema site over the next 10 years could cost the region $320 million in investment, $81 million in annual payroll and 1,450 jobs.

Cleaning up the toxic messes along the river is not easy nor inexpensive, a fact that’s contributing to the slow pace of progress. Hard choices need to be made and compromises struck between competing interests.

Steve Gunther, an environmental contractor who resigned from the harbor’s Community Advisory Group in frustration, says, “This is a billion-dollar project with no timeframe, no budget, no vision and no accountability.”

Gunther calls Superfund process “a jobs program for lawyers, lab rats and consultants.”

The Oregonian says the cleanup effort could commence in 2013, with the cost potentially totaling $1 billion or more for industry, landowners, and sewer and utility ratepayers. It’s likely to involve hundreds of landowners past and present, and some of the state’s top industrial employers, from Schnitzer Steel to Siltronic.

I don’t see how Portland could have a more critical issue on its plate. We’re a river city and a city with a lot of unrealized ideals about how business and environmental needs can coexist. The thing is we’re not in a lab in a school. Portland is the lab and we can either get it right and prosper, or get it wrong and dissolve in a toxic stew of our own making.

Portland author Donald Miller has some thoughts on New Year’s resolutions.

I’ve discovered something better than resolutions. If you’ve read A Million Miles in a Thousand Years, you know I’ve reorganized my life into stories rather than goals. I don’t have any problem with goals. I like goals and still set them. But without an overarching plot, goals don’t make sense and are hard to achieve. A story gives a goal a narrative context that makes sense to the brain, making them more likely to actually be achieved.

A story involves a person that wants something and is willing to overcome conflict to get it. If you plan a story this year, instead of just simple goals, your life will be more exciting, more meaningful and more memorable. And you are much more likely to stick to your goals. For instance, rather than saying I want to finish getting into shape this year, I’ve written down that I want to climb Mt. Hood with a couple friends. I have a vision of standing on top of the mountain in May, taking pictures and all that. Now my goal has a narrative context.

Narrative context is good. One of my goals is to be a better friend this year. But that’s kind of vague, isn’t it?

My goal needs specifics if I’m going to work my plan successfully. Specifically, I need to back off this tap tap tap medium that’s become so central to our lives, and actually call my friends on the phone and then make plans to go see them!

People tend to think of South Florida, and The Everglades in particular, as a swamp. But it’s not a swamp. It’s a massive river system that begins near Orlando with the Kissimmee River, which discharges into the vast but shallow Lake Okeechobee. Water leaving the lake in the wet season forms a slow-moving river 60 miles wide and over 100 miles long, flowing southward across a limestone shelf to Florida Bay at the southern end of the state.

Last week Darby, my mom and I got to see the river up close in the Shark Valley section of Everglades National Park. The river and what’s in it—birds, alligators, turtles and fish, all easily visible despite the throngs of camera-toting international tourists. Darby kept a handwritten record in her notebook of the scores of endangered wood storks, the anhingas drying their wings, pied-billed grebes moving through the water, blue herons and egrets fishing, and roseate spoonbills on the wing.

We also learned that Everglades National Park, established in 1947, is the third largest national park in the lower 48 states, covering 1.5 million acres. And that the sup-tropical region is home to six distinct habitats: hammock, mangrove, pineland, sawgrass, slough, and marine.

The Everglades is a great place to reconnect with nature, but the ecosystem is also the sole source of drinking water for more than six million people in South Florida. Hence, the idea that The Everglades needs protective care, now more than ever, is without question.

Contact Friends of the Everglades, the environmental group founded by writer and Everglades activist Marjory Stoneman Douglas in 1969. Or reach out to Everglades Foundation, another group doing important work in the area.

For the past four years I’ve been keeping track of the various trips I take during the year as a way to celebrate (and make note of) the people and places I had the good fortune to visit.

This year I spent at least one night in the following places (other than at home in Portland, OR):

• Seattle, WA*
• Brownsville, OR*
• Carlton, OR
• Omaha, NE
• Ashford, WA
• Union, WA
• Medford, OR
• Miami, FL
• Marco Island, FL

*indicates more than one visit

Also see: 2006 | 2007 | 2008

Activists seeking “Climate Justice” have been methodically protesting in Copenhagen during the two-week U.N.-sponsored summit on climate change, in order to push delegates and leaders toward real solutions instead of the usual rhetoric-filled nothingness.

According to The New York Times, the protests went from peaceful to heated today.

In Wednesday’s demonstrations, protesters began massing north of the center shortly before noon and pressed into a tight line of riot police blocking access to the hall. Some of the officers wielded truncheons against the chanting, shoving protesters in a close-order scrum. After forcibly removing protesters from a truck parked in an intersection outside the Bella Center, police in blue vans kept moving the protesters backwards, nearly pushing some into a watery marsh.

As the police vans advanced, skirmishes broke out with protesters who formed human chains and chanted their commitment to nonviolence and to helping people in parts of the world that they said would be hardest hit by climate change. A number of protesters encouraged individual groups to keep pushing against the police.

Apparently, 250 people were arrested today in these “skirmishes” with police. Like the protests around the WTO meetings in Seattle and elsewhere, it’s a hard core minority that seeks to escalate the confrontation. But I don’t believe anti-capitalist sentiment is a minority opinion. People are tired of powerful interests simply running people into the ground.

Mette Hermansen, 27, studying to train teachers, and a member of the International Socialists of Denmark, told the Times, “In the Bella Center they are not discussing solutions to climate change. They are discussing how rich countries can continue emitting and how to sell that to the public. We are not preventing leaders from making solutions but encouraging them to make solutions.”

Bonus click: I also wrote about “Hopenhagen,” the U.N.’s effort to rebrand the famous Danish city during the Conference, on AdPulp.

Matthew and the Arrogant Sea opened for Midlake at Wonder Ballroom in Portland last night. I entered the room a Midlake fan, but unexpectedly walked out a Matthew and the Arrogant Sea fan.

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Darryl Smyers of Dallas Observer calls the band’s songs “lush and intricate one minute, lo-fi and ragged the next.” That sounds about right. The article also notes comparisons to The Beach Boys and Fleet Foxes, but from the selection of songs we saw last night, the comparison I drew was one between lead singer Jacob Gray’s vocal style and that of Colin Meloy of The Decemberists.

I appreciate that Gray came out in a sport coat prepared to do his thing, but shed it in the process. At first, I was thinking who is this professor of rock, but through his songs and a funny dance he did, he revealed himself and ultimately that’s what I love to see in an artist. Matthew and the Arrogant Sea only played 38 minutes–the length of an E.P. I’m ready to see what they do with a 90-minute set. For those attending SXSW this month, check ‘em out.

Midlake is a band we’ve been wanting to see for some time. Their 2006 release on Bella Union, The Trials of Van Occupanther, is a favorite. Like The Decemberists (again), Midlake takes listeners on a sonic journey. Their songs are passages in an epic. When listening to these bands you just sail away on their music. I guess I was expecting to do that last night. I wanted to taste the salted sea coming over the bow of the Midlake vessel, but I didn’t exactly. There were moments, but generally it wasn’t a brisk outing.

Barton Carroll’s fourth solo effort, Together You and I, was released January 19th on Skybucket Records. The album is full of compelling lyrics and interesting melodies. It’s Americana, but rich and dark, like an espresso stout to the rest of the genre’s amber ale.

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A North Carolina native (and former member of Crooked Fingers) who now lives in Seattle, Carroll’s songs are structured in the folk traditions he grew up with, but he trades in standard instrumentation for the west coast horn sound of Craig Flory, and the production of jazz bassist Matt Weiner. He also sings his first duets with Seattle singer Anna Lisa Notter.

Seattlest says (about his previous album):

His guitar work isn’t necessarily extraordinary, but it builds cascading walls of sound that wrap around you, creating a nice little room where the songs dance amid filtered light and images of longing. His stories aren’t afraid to back off and let the instruments go for a spell. His voice cracks now and then the way skin cracks on a well-worked pair of hands. Honest is the best word for it.

Pitchfork says:

Barton Carroll is the kind of songwriter that gets taken for granted. In a modestly fragile tenor, he relates real stories instead of impressionistic poetry or woe-is-me folk confessions, full of acute observations and complex emotional developments. It’s literary in the sense that he has a strong grasp of character and voice, not in the sense that he favors big words or clever turns of phrase. Carroll may never be called innovative, but he can’t be called showy either, which places him in the school of troubadours like Freedy Johnston and John Hiatt, who have a similar folksy bent and a shared itch to try on new perspectives.

After giving Carroll’s new album a listen, I’m impressed with how patient he is as an artist. It seems like he’s coming from another time, and that’s a particularly nice feeling in today’s rush-to-discover-this-and-do-that world.

[MP3 Offering] “Monday Night” by Barton Carroll

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Court Yard Hounds are Emily Robison and Martie Maguire from the Dixie Chicks. Their debut album is available for pre-order at this time. With a pre-order, you will be able to download four album tracks immediately and receive special access to tickets for the band’s theater shows this spring.

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Grant-Lee Phillips took the Mississippi Studios stage last night, alone, just a man, his guitar and a head full of stories. Except for a few unconscious talkers in the back, the capacity audience hung on Phillips’ every note and every word.

Phillips appeared very comfortable on stage. He’s clearly a seasoned performer, but there’s something else. There’s a vibrant, hopeful message in his brand of lyrical narrative and six string delivery.

NPR says “Phillips knows how to radiate hope in quotable, genuinely inspirational ways that steer clear of mawkishness.”

In a music world full of hipper than thou attitude, Phillips is like a strong, nutrient-rich wind coming in off the Pacific. iTunes names his 2009 release Little Moon the year’s Best Singer/Songwriter Album, according to American Songwriter.

In the video above Phillips calls Little Moon his best work yet. I’m already a big fan of Virginia Creeper and Mobilize. Now, after last night’s show, I’m ready to indulge in a batch of new songs from this American craftsman.

“You had bluegrass and you had rock, and in that respect there wasn’t much happening. You had the Nitty Gritty Dirt Band and others with drums and stuff, but they were more country. We took it to a different place. We played with a lot more abandon.” -Drew Emmitt

Leftover Salmon first played together in 1989. To celebrate their 20th anniversary last fall, LOS teamed up with Jambase to deliver a special four-part feature on the band’s history and a free two-CD album that includes rare live tracks from 1991 through 2009.

Selecting, mastering and organizing the material fell largely on the shoulders of Leftover Salmon manger John Joy, who along with band archivist Chad Staehly and Eric Abramson, who did the Leftover Salmon Years In Your Ears DVD, narrowed it down from hundreds – if not thousands – of songs to bring this live compilation to life.

Track Listing for the Double CD Length Download “Celebrating 20 Years”
1. Blister in the Sun – 05/04/1991 McCabe’s Boulder, CO
2. Just Before The Evening – 05/04/1991 McCabe’s Boulder, CO
3. Whiskey Before Breakfast/Over The Waterfall – 05/04/1991 McCabe’s – Boulder, CO
4. Who Stole My Monkey – 05/25/1991 Stage Stop – Rollinsville, CO
5. Mystery – 10/02/1993 – Fox Theater – Boulder, CO
6. Weights – 10/02/1993 – Fox Theater – Boulder, CO
7. Dance On Your Head – 10/19/1994 Music Farm – Charleston, SC
8. Head Bag – 10/19/1994 Music Farm – Charleston, SC
9. Hot Burrito Breakdown – 08/07/1995 The Fillmore – San Francisco, CA
10. River’s Rising – 07/14/1996 Great American Music Festival – Winter Park, CO
11. Funky Mountain Fogdown (with Pete Sears) – 04/14/1997 The Fillmore – San Francisco, CA
12. Up On The Hill Where We Do The Boogie – 02/16/1998 JR’s Dickson Street Ball Room – Fayetteville, AR
13. Little Maggie – 02/22/1998 Tipitina’s – New Orleans, LA
14. Mama Look a Boo Boo (with Karl Denson) – 04/22/1999 Ogden Theatre – Denver, CO
15. Ooh Las Vegas (with Trey Anastasio) – 09/20/1999 Rialto Theater – Tucson, AZ
16. Nobody’s Fault But Mine (with John Bell, Jeff Austin, Pete Sears and John Cowan) – 09/09/2000 Planet Salmon – Lyons, CO
17. Austin Five (Mark Vann Original, Never Released) – 03/26/2001 The Canopy – Urbana, IL
18. Teen Angst (with David Lowery) – 09/24 & 09/25/2002 David Lowery’s Studio – Richmond, VA
19. Dark Hollow (with Del McCoury) – 11/09/2002 The NorVa – Norfolk, VA
20. Rocky Road Blues (with Mike Gordon) – 12/04/2002 Higher Ground – Winooski, VT
21. Ain’t No Use (with David Grisman) – 01/29/2003 McNear’s Mystic Theatre – Petaluma, CA
22. Ain’t Gonna Work Tomorrow (with Sam Bush and Ross Martin) – 02/20/2003 Fox Theater – Boulder, CO
23. Breakin Thru – 12/31/2004 Fox Theater – Boulder, CO
24. Catfish John (with Michael Wooten) – 12/31/2004 Fox Theater – Boulder, CO
25. Valley Of The Full Moon – 07/28/2007 Red Rocks Amphitheatre – Morrison, CO
26. Ask The Fish – 07/28/2007 Red Rocks Amphitheatre – Morrison, CO
27. Vampire Blues – 10/31/2008 Fillmore Auditorium – Denver, CO
28. Rise Up, Wake and Bake – 07/03/2009 High Sierra Music Festival – Quincy, CA

This is a ruthless collection of live tunes from LOS. Polyethnic Cajun Slamgrass brings joy to people’s lives. To experience this goodness, head over to Jambase and get your download on.

Portland musician and producer Mike Coykendall has a new album out on Field Hymns Records. A dose of hi-lo-fi avant-pop, The Unbearable Being of Likeness, is available now for $11.

Since moving to Portland from San Francisco, Coykendall has produced, engineered and performed with M. Ward, She & Him and Blitzen Trapper. But he has been writing songs and making records since the mid 80s. Midwesterner’s might remember Coykendall in the Kansas prairie-psyche band Klyde Konnor; Americana fans might remember him the seminal San Francisco group The Old Joe Clarks; and a lucky few will have copies of his 2005 underground classic Hello, Hello, Hello, also available from Field Hymns.

The Unbearable Being of Likeness offers a diversity of sounds, from mellow ditties to melodic rockers. Coykendall’s compositions share something with Jay Farrar’s campfire comfortability, but his work in the studio mastering the songs adds layers to the album, making it a much spacier, more nuanced affair.

MP3 Offering: “First Shot, Best Shot”

Richmond Fontaine is a four-piece alternative country band based in Portland, Oregon. Like Franz Ferdinand or Jethro Tull, the band is named after a real person but their namesake was not famous prior to being adopted by the band.

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I was handed the band’s 2009 release, We Used to Think the Freeway Sounded Like a River, by Aaron Draplin last week.

John Dworkin at Blurt says, “A few of the songs on ‘Freeway’ deserve special mention and ‘Lonnie’ is one of them. Its crackling distorted rhythm guitars throwing off sparks, detailed melodic hooks, and attention to dynamics recalls Shawn Colvin’s ‘Get Out Of This House,’ but with more of the rough edges left in.”

I’d compare the song “Lonnie” to several by Drive-By Truckers, but it’s funny because no other track on the album sounds like “Lonnie.” What the other songs do have is plenty of story. In fact, Willy Vlautin’s dark, story-like songwriting, has helped the band achieve critical acclaim at home and across Europe.

Vlautin is also an author of two novels, with a third on the way. Here’s a promotional video for his new book, Lean On Pete, due in April in the U.S.

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MP3 Offering: “Lonnie”

Yael Meyer is an independent singer-songwriter-multi instrumentalist based in Los Angeles. Her recently released EP entitled Heartbeat was recorded in Los Angeles and produced by Bill Lefler and includes guest appearances by Danny Levin on trumpet, Fil Krohnengold on acoustic guitar and accordion and Joseph Karnes on bass.

Here’s a track from the new EP, “Shed Their Fear,” performed with her friend Chanie Kravitz.

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Meyer’s EP is available now on Amazon and iTunes. My favorite track on the five-song effort is “Favorite Two.” It’s a very pretty track, in a flowery, alpine valley-in-summer kind of way. And sometimes that’s just what a person wants to hear on a rainy day.

MP3 Offering: “Favorite Two”

Garage a Trois pulled into Portland last night prepared to showcase songs from their new album, Power Patriot, and to win over fans not yet accustom to the band’s new lineup (Charlie Hunter left Garage to focus on his own band and his family in 2007).

After playing shows with Robert Walter and John Medeski, the group finally melded with keyboard impresario, Marco Benevento. By all accounts the music is heavier now, but I didn’t hear anyone at Doug Fir Lounge last night complain. By my estimate Garage played in an inspired performance. I know I visited some intergalactic destinations I hadn’t seen in awhile on the strength of the band’s contemporary improv.

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Here’s what JamBase is saying about the new lineup:

While I immensely enjoyed and appreciated the Garage A Trois from the first half of this decade, I honestly feel this lineup and sound is what Garage A Trois was meant to be and what will take them to the next level. While the former Garage A Trois’ sound felt more rooted in cross-cultural, past musical traditions, the new sound feels current and even futuristic.

Jambands.com puts it this way:

Only these four musicians—in their perfect storm of cosmic improv energy—could manage to make dark industrial jazz sound lighthearted (“Rescue Spreaders”) and conjure perfectly danceable freakout swing (“Fragile”), and that’s just the first two tracks of Power Patriot.

Glide Magazine also offers a review of the new record.

In an interesting twist of fate, Charlie Hunter played Mississippi Studios last night, just a few miles away from the East Burnside basement where his former cohorts were reaching for the outer limits.

Twenty five years ago, Dirty Dozen Brass Band released its first album, My Feet Can’t Fail Me Now and New Orleans became that much funkier.

With classic cuts such as “Lil Liza Jane” and the stirring version of “St. James Infirmary,” in addition to rousing originals such as “Blackbird Special” and the title track, this album set the standard for what was to become a reinvigorated brass band scene in the Crescent City.

To celebrate the anniversary, DDBB has made the title track of its debut album available for free on its website. In addition, the group will re-release a re-mastered version of the currently out of print album and play the disc in its entirety at several shows this fall, according to Jambands and Jambase.

Here’s the full track list:

1. Blackbird Special
2. Do It Fluid
3. I Ate Up the Apple Tree
4. Bongo Beep
5. Blue Monk
6. Caravan
7. St James Infirmary
8. L’il Liza Jame
9. Mary Mary
10. My Feet Can’t Fail Me Now

I was talking to a friend recently, a fellow entrepreneur, and I said I’m really focused on finding the “right clients” right now. He said, “the right client is the one who writes you a check.” Believe me, I appreciate that point-of-view and recognize the kernel of truth in it. Without capital, your enterprise grinds to a halt and soon enough you’re out of business. That’s how it works in the real world. Yet, there is more to the story, and more to pursuing new business than the transaction itself.

Bonehook exists to help friends (new and old) build their brands and grow their businesses. Therefore, we seek client-agency relationships where both parties make an investment in one another. In the best of cases, agencies and clients grow together and become successful together.

I’ve spent many years working for clients that made products or marketed services I don’t care about or believe in. That may not be the political thing to say here, but it’s true, and I’m a big believer in letting truth, not politics, guide my decisions. Here’s the deal, I have no interest in allowing that kind of thing to pollute these waters.

It’s important to stand for something–something other than making money. When you do, a certain percentage of people will no doubt recoil, but others will find common ground with you. And that’s the point. I’m perfectly willing to repel some in order to find the kind of business partners that I’m truly excited to go to bat for, day in and day out for many years to come.

The question that remains is where to find these partners, and I suspect that will always be the question. So far, the answer has been to find them among existing friends, and via introductions to friends of friends. That’s a strategy that has only just begun to play out, but I’m already aware of the need to reach beyond these comfortable circles to make new friends.

But how? Will I find like-minded people that might become clients someday at industry events and conferences? Yes. Will I find them in online networks? Yes. Will I sit next to them at one of Portland’s community tables and engage them in conversation? Yes. In fact, if you’ve read all the way to this point, please take a second or two to introduce yourself in the comments here, via email or on Twitter. Who knows, we might soon be friends.

Advertising is often referred to by its makers as a craft. It’s an assessment I’m fully on board with, but it’s one that usually needs a bit of clarification for it to make perfect sense to someone outside the business.

Craftsmen start out as apprentices, they become journeymen and, if it’s in the cards, they eventually become masters of the craft. Some people like Alex Bogusky of Crispin Porter & Bogusky master the craft early (he became a creative director at 27). For others it’s a long, strenuous journey to arrive at mastery. Either way, if you’re any good at making ads, you’re part of this unnamed, but still very real, guild of craftsmen. You’re on a journey, constantly learning from the masters and incorporating new things into your practice.

For the moment, let’s compare our work to that of a haberdasher’s. When an expert tailor makes a suit, it’s meant to bring out the best in a man. The new suit flatters but it doesn’t “make the man,” as some have argued. The same is true of advertising. A company’s product or service offering is what it is. No new suit, or updated brand identity, changes that. In other words, you don’t go to a tailor in order to lose 50 pounds, you go to a tailor for a suit that fits, whatever your weight.

To play out the analogy a bit further, there’s an implicit trust developed between a man and his suit maker. The man may express his tastes in a suit and his preferences regarding fit, but ultimately the tailor has to make the suit. In advertising, it’s common for the client to request several rounds of changes based upon all sorts of feedback received in hallway chats and other questionable quarters. If the same client tried to steer his tailor in this fashion–and the tailor, wanting to be paid more than anything else, allowed himself to be so handled–he’d end up looking like a clown.

Great work that ends up moving the needle for a client is always a result of mutual respect and the kind of client/agent relationship that allows for constructive feedback and constant learning on both sides. One of the charter goals here at Bonehook is to do work for our friends and for people we want to be friends with. Partly, that’s to ensure we’re always working for good. And partly, it’s due to the fact that it’s the only way great work is consistently made.

I got an education in Iterative Marketing this week thanks to Dave Allen at Fight. Please see “Fighting Words,” my story on AdPulp for the full rundown.

Fight is a new strategic marketing agency that emerged last year after Allen and Justin Spohn left Portland-based Nemo to join with Rob Shields of Razorfish. Fight’s big client is Pacific Gas & Electric, and their main message to marketers is THE BIG IDEA’s time has come and gone, thanks to the rise of the Internet and the cultural impact created by that watershed event.

I’m making note of it here because I believe in supporting other creative professionals in Portland (and learning all I can from my colleagues). In days gone by my instinct might have been to compete, not to share ideas and the spotlight. Today, I think it’s clear we all need one another to survive, and no one firm can do everything right. For instance, I pride myself on my strategic abilities but I wouldn’t hesitate to recommend Fight as a strategic partner, if I felt that was the best solution for my client.

So, what’s Iterative Marketing and why should we care? It’s a process where a brand takes many small steps towards solving its marketing problems, versus large and expensive steps that can’t be tweaked midstream or easily undone. Each step allows for data gathering, analysis of said data and the ability to fix or change the creative on the fly. In other words, it’s the way things are built online. Take this site, or Fight’s for that matter. We’re up and running, but we’ll be making lots of improvements as we go.

Given the importance of ROI to every marketer, I believe we’re going to see and hear much more about this new framework. Personally, I came up in the industry at a time when THE BIG IDEA was sacred. But after discussing the matter with Allen, I am for the first time open to the concept that lots of small ideas, properly managed, can outperform one BIG IDEA.

It’s also interesting to see digital culture’s impact on business. Our clients and our agencies might come from the 20th century, or the 19th in some cases, but we’re in a new time now and it’s our job as communications professionals to understand what’s going on around us and to adapt our own businesses and our clients’ marketing to the new realities.

I’m working with Portland-based designer Aaron Draplin on the development of Bonehook’s brand identity, and while we’re not all the way there just yet, he provided me with some incredible initial ideas.

Exhibit A:

[UPDATE] Draplin’s on business in Germany right now; yet, he somehow found time to get me round two. I’m honored to have such a hard working, and insanely talented designer on this job.

Last night, I listened to Dan Wieden tell stories about his illustrious career at Jimmy Mak’s, the Pearl District jazz club. My full report is available on AdPulp, but I’d like to use this space to pursue an answer to a question from an audience member that Wieden failed to sufficiently address.

The question came from Sarah Harpole, a Senior Project Manager at Portland Development Commission, the city’s economic development arm. She asked Wieden how the city might better serve W+K and other creative firms in the city. Wieden said, “That would be a good idea.” An uncomfortable silence followed. I was sitting near Harpole, so after the talk I mentioned that I’d be happy to address her question.

This morning when I searched for the words, “Portland Creative Class” I found a page on PDC’s site devoted to the topic. There is some good data on this page (see below), but not much in the way of an argument for using our services.

• 1,500 firms and a total of 14,000 employees.
• Revenues of $2 billion and a payroll of $976,808,000.
• Average creative services wage $66,663/year compared to regional average wage of $40,639.
• Greater percent of freelancers or self-employed professionals than other industry clusters.
• More than half of the state’s graphic design firms are concentrated in the Portland metro area.

My suggestion to Harpole and the city is to build on this good start. Develop a Portland creative class brand and launch a site (and a campaign) that makes the case for employing Portland-based firms. It’s not an original idea. Savannah, GA, for instance, supports local firms with their Creative Coast initiative. Unlike Savannah, Portland is well known for being attractive to well-educated, young workers. But that doesn’t mean we can leave it at that.

Consider the work Rick Turoczy performs on behalf of the city’s tech community. He’s a one man publicity machine for his industry and there’s little doubt he’s creating value for the companies he reports on. The city could pretty easily adopt Turoczy’s Silicon Florist model, staff it with an editor and fund it properly so said editor can pay writers to report on the entire scope of creative industries, and Portland businesses within those industries.

Naturally, I’d be honored to work with the city on a project of this nature.

Sean Trapani, Professor of Advertising at Savannah College of Art and Design (SCAD), found an old short story I wrote about an aspiring copywriter who has dreams of working at Wieden + Kennedy. The good professor figures it’s a tale his students ought to read, which is flattering.

Trapani also asked me to address the following five questions for his students’ benefit.

1) What have you found to be the biggest truth & biggest myth about copywriting?

Copywriting, like all writing, is driven by a purpose. It’s not a creative exercise, rather a means to an end, the end in this case being greater awareness and recall for one’s client. Coming from this place, I’d say the biggest truth in copy is the need to remove the writer from the room. Writers, with all their skill, will undoubtedly get in the way of the work and fail to remember the objective. Put another way, it’ important to be an ad man first and a writer second. The biggest fallacy in copy, of course, flows from this truth. Copy isn’t about clever word play, it’s about solving marketing problems.

2) Do you have a routine before you start working on an ad; a process?

The process is very straightforward. Learn all you can about the client’s business and even more about the client’s customers and prospects. Since the job is to find a way to connect with these customers and future customers in a way that creates lasting bonds, it’s imperative to “walk a mile in the customer’s shoes.” What the customer wants from a company might be totally different from what the company and its agency wants to deliver. But it can’t be, not if the advertising is expected to work. So the hard work of research has to happen on the ground well before strategies can be drafted, or creative concepts delivered. Once it’s time to think stuff up, my process is remove myself from the machine and think on my feet. When thoughts arise that might be worth noting, I like to write them down on a piece of paper.

3) When you’ve written something, how do “know” it’s good?

Copywriters are craftsmen. After years of dedication to the craft, good writers develop an ear for great copy. Great copy flows like a river, naturally and confidently toward its destination.

4) Whose work (advertising or otherwise) should every aspiring copywriter know?

You have to be a student of the business. Anything short of that leads directly to The Hackery. My own career has been deeply impacted by the work of Janet Champ at Wieden + Kennedy. I never would have become a copywriter if she hadn’t brought the poetry of the womens movement to Nike. For me, that was the example I needed to grasp copy’s immense power, and advertising’s importance in our culture. And even though I’ve never come close to making that kind of impact as a copywriter, I’m driven by the belief that my chance to do so is near and that it’s on me to be ready. But don’t mooch my idol, there are plenty of other inspiring people in advertising and the larger communications field.

5) This new media world looks to be a wild ride. Where the heck are we (copywriting) going?

The Web is a copywriter’s dream come true because it’s a great place to connect with people via story. It’s the digital campfire–an ancient archetype in the modern world–and storytellers are the keepers of this fire. All of which makes it correct to say this is the most exciting time ever to be in advertising, and it’s only going to get better from here.

In my desire to learn as much as I can about the wine industry, I came across this list of the Top Ten Wine Companies in the U.S. and some of their leading wine brands.

Source: Marin Institute

One thing that occurs to me as I look over this list is how different wine is from beer and spirits, in that, many major wine brands don’t feel big. Take the brands in Altria’s portfolio—Conn Creek, Villa Mt. Eden, Distant Bay and Chateau St. Michelle—maybe you’ve heard of them, maybe you haven’t. To me, this remote brand recall indicates a need for an industry-wide investment in marketing communications. From the major producers on down.

Personally, I prefer to consume wine from a wide variety of small, mostly local, producers. But my tastes don’t matter. One of the truths of the modern marketplace is lots of people prefer to consistently shop for what they know. Discovery isn’t this group’s motive in the wine aisle. Price and brand awareness help steer this shopper to a purchase.

One note of encouragement for the small to mid-sized producer is the fact that the race for consumer mindshare in wine is wide open. There are a handful of household names—Robert Mondavi, Beringer, Clos Du Bois and Gallo—everyone else can use a smart mix of content, word of mouth, experiential and old school advertising to help create brand preference in a category that can be confusing and overwhelming for many shoppers.

[DISCLOSURE: Bonehook is currently working with MAS Wine Company on business development initiatives.]

Last week Andy Woehl of MAS Wine Company rolled into town and we spent the morning talking about wine in kegs and other matters of substance. At one point, Andy asked me what inspired the Bonehook name. It’s a question I expect to field regularly, so it was fun to explain to him some of the thinking that went into it.

I said in part it’s literal, in that a hook fashioned from bone is a tool we’ve relied on for thousands of years to catch our dinner. I said I want the company to “look and feel” like a Northwest guide service, because that’s what it is. A company comes knocking and we take them fishing for loyal customers, often in waters that require the expert skill of a local.

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1- We exist to solve marketing problems. Not to win awards, become famous or fabulously wealthy.

2- We’re totally committed to the work. Great work moves people, and it’s the means to our mutually desired end–in this case, your marketing problems all neatly solved.

3- We’re straight up. Marketing problems don’t solve themselves. They’re solved by people willing and able to deal honestly with the challenges at hand.

4 – We’re small for a reason. Clients often need the expertise found in some of the larger shops, but they just as often need to turn to a small shop, staffed by refugees from the larger shops, in order to have a direct line to that expertise.

5 – We’re media neutral. We care about doing the job that needs doing, not about trying to force fit a solution that isn’t needed. If you need TV, we’ll recommend it. If you need a bill stuffer that drives people to a promotional Web site, we’ll recommend it.

6- We focus on talent. Our teams are assembled specifically to tackle a certain project or ongoing series of projects, which means we always have the best possible team (not one picked randomly from the agency bullpen) working on any given job.

7- We don’t sell, we share our passions. We’ll share yours too, by helping you translate your passion for what you do best into customer-friendly marketing materials that build your brand.

8- We’re a good business partner. We show up on time, deliver our work on time, bill fairly and generally safeguard your reputation and our own.

9- We’re not afraid. In order to best serve your needs, we need to do the right things, and the right things are not always the most popular, or most comfortable things to do.

10- We love people. To truly connect with all the crazy and wonderful people on this planet, a.k.a. your customers, we need to be in tune with more than demographic info, we need to know what people are feeling, what matters to them and a little bit about their dreams.

On Friday I met with graphic designer, Aaron Draplin, in his fifth floor industrial loft to discuss the need to develop a kick ass Bonehook logo and identity package. It was a great meeting, the kind you walk away from excited to actually do all the things being discussed.

One thing Draplin asked me to do was create a design brief for him, and to list five people or companies that inspire me. It was a great exercise to write the brief and explore the core essence of this brand and what our mission as a company truly is. It’s a DNA test and one that every company needs to undertake. I’d also suggest taking the time to list five people or companies that inspire you.

Here’s what I put down:

• Yvon Chouinard, CEO of Patagonia and author of Let My People Go Surfing
• Lee Clow, Worldwide Creative Director, TBWA\Chiat\Day and long time lead on the agency’s Apple account
• Hotel San Jose in Austin, TX (the definition of down home chic)
• Rick Rubin, legendary record producer–take a listen to the new Avett Brothers record for proof of the man’s enduring genius
• Interface founder and Chairman Ray Anderson for committing to a new and fully sustainable business model and making it happen in a big way for his company

It’s a short list, but that’s good because it forces you to focus on the things that matter most. For instance, in my five examples I see a deep commitment to sustainability. There’s also tenacious drive, a calm confidence and the creative spirit it takes to make something original.