the hope for the Kyrgyzstani roller coaster

   I tend to stay away, and will do so here, from the political (in this blog, anyway). My opening is qualifying that this approaches the political.
   When I think of global business, I tend to think of two arenas even before the countries are mentioned: the BRIC countries (Brazil, Russia, India and China) and the abstraction of cultural differences. In my heart, I’m abundantly aware that people are essentially the same everywhere, except for the expressions of cultural differences. It tends to be governments and corporations that always seem to be at issue. Having studied Russia 30 years now, India 22 and China just the last three or four it is somewhat of a hobby trying to stay abreast of what goes on around the world.
   Kyrgyzstan has been a bit of a roller coaster of late. In April the government was replaced. That may or may not prove out to be positive. Riots precipitated that, and the opposition responded back about three weeks ago through about a week ago. That’s all unfortunate. Meanwhile, the provisional government is moving toward becoming the first parliamentary democracy in Central Asia. Very great. And then yesterday, it’s former colonial power’s president, Russia’s Medvedev, decided to make a statement against such a move. Not good. A roller coaster, right?
   So, who cares? Well, naturally, we all should. The people live in desperate poverty, yet they’re a highly literate country (over 98%). Mountainous and landlocked it is nonetheless a country of extraordinary natural beauty. Its primary extraction industry is gold. Kyrgyzstan is a member of the WTO. And being in the heart of Central Asia it straddles a crossroads of sorts between Europe and Asia. When one compares business conditions in Kyrgyzstan with even Eastern Europe, most if not all conditions seem significantly favorable. From a cultural perspective, the blend of East and West is already who they are, and so various marketing perspectives that would be heavy lifting elsewhere may be givens here.
   The country and its people seem to have so very much to offer, including an average infrastructure, yet after so many years as a stepchild of the Soviet's they just need some tools, some basic help … like investment and business. Of course, one wants to be prudent and see how things shake out. Still, here’s the one two punch: pray now it all indeed works out, then move in and celebrate the win-win opportunity to do business there.
   I wish the Kyrgyzstani’s all the best. I’ll be keeping an eye in that direction with hope.

http://topics.nytimes.com/top/news/international/countriesandterritories/kyrgyzstan/index.html
http://www.doingbusiness.org/exploreeconomies/?economyid=106

https://www.cia.gov/library/publications/the-world-factbook/geos/kg.html

Defining Terms

   About a week ago I lunched with a buddy who owns a frame shop. I’d come across a sixty year old image that needed framing. Among the various topics that came up I’d shared this new blog. This guy is pretty sharp and yet he was not familiar with the term the “applied arts”. Here are two definitions; one from the National Gallery, one from Wikipedia:
            • Applied art is the application of design and aesthetics to objects of function and everyday use. Whereas fine arts serve as intellectual stimulation to the viewer or academic sensibilities, the applied arts incorporate design and creative ideals to objects of utility, such as a cup, magazine or ... http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Applied_arts 
            • Traditionally, art made for a practical purpose (eg, weaving, metalwork, ceramics, woodworking, graphic design, etc.). Art nouveau rejected the distinction between applied and fine art. www.nga.gov/education/tchan_6.shtm
   I thought to offer up my own definition yet I prefer the credibility of established sources here. However, as you will soon read, my sense is that the definition has drifted. My point is that if Charlie didn’t know, many others might not, either.
   There is a conscious effort in higher education that if one is offering an academic experience in the arts there seems to be two diverging directions. Schools like University of the Arts, while always offering fine and applied (and craft) side by side, are seeking now to capture creative synergy by offering performing and music along with visual arts.
   However, schools like the Art Institute and the Academy of Design & Technology narrow the focus to … the applied arts. With the latter, there’s such an emphasis on helping the student find employment after graduation (a worthy goal!) it would make good business sense to only offer that which are the “marketable” art degrees.
   Some schools include culinary, but for our purposes we’ll stick to the visual. In general, this is what we’re speaking of: Animation, CAD (Industrial, Civil, Architecture, etc ), Fashion Design, Film, Game Design, Graphic Design, Illustration, Interior Design, Multimedia Digital, Photography, Production (pkg., sign, etc.) and Web Design.
   One may note a further distinction by its absence: crafts. Jewelry, Ceramics, Metal, Glass and Woodworking, Paper making / Book Binding and the like straddle both worlds, yet lack the wider business opportunities that firms, agencies and studios interacting on a regular basis with other industries of commerce tend to offer. These remain embraced by the former schools, not the latter. Ironic in the sense that the crafts tend to by definition reside with the applied. But it is academic business, because of the inherent lack readily available for commoditization of the subset known as crafts as compared with their other function based applied art kin.
   So, the applied arts has become the "marketable" arts, visual disciplines for which there is an immediate opportunity to monetize ones education. For these majors there are already businesses built around or because of them. And established industries that tend to interact with them.

What's a Slactivist?

For Young Adults, Activism Can Be Hitting 'Like' on Facebook, but Brands Can Use This to Their Advantage by Ann Marie Kerwin – Copyright © 2010 Crain Communications (publisher); Advertising Age - Published: June 28, 2010 – retrieved from http://adage.com/digital/article?article_id=144686

   Great article that both confirms and extends what marketing is currently exploring as a base means of what works in e-commerce. Turns out, the movement begun near a decade ago in Sales/Salesmanship (academic) writings that had nothing to do with the internet seem to find currency, along with all the latest writings, that the future of sales is relational.

   Kerwin's ten ways to reach the youth includes all manner of gestures just used in the BCRS project: involve the audience, remind them of the difference they make, make it easy, make it social, etc.

   My only disagreement, a gentle one, is that it seems to me the youth simply punctuates what the rest of the world is up to; i. e., while there may be no other way to have an effective broad brushstroke with that generation, this approach is increasingly applicable to basically everyone.

FIFA ads (Fédération Internationale de Football Association ads)

   What a good luck charm I must be; I finally get to watch a US World Cup game and we get eliminated. Seemed like a decent game, though. But on to marketing, global considerations and graphic design.

   With the wrap around LED billboard that was regularly rotating adverts, I was struck by what succeeded most, and that which succeeded least (at least in this humble opinion) and why. Pemmican (not listed here) and Yingli Solar seemed among the least adept at this bumper sticker communication. I was unfamiliar with both entities as an audience so I confess that now. However, the ad buy did not allow either to be as splashy as, say, Emirates Air. Pemmican relied too much on its logo to carry its brand. Yingli is the first Chinese company to sponsor this event and seemed to find it necessary to integrate Chinese characters side by side with its roman characters (BTW, listed on the NYSE). Naturally, from a Chinese business perspective, this is exactly what they do want; they are looking to build for a long-term relationship (not the classic branding iron on the brain – flash, you got it branding).

   I could pick on MTM and Seara for pushing a third color, didas for not shortening the length of its horizontal stripes (somewhat a balance distraction visually against the type), but for a real middle point I’d say Sony attempted too much; overworking the presentation. Their wrap around was: SONY (space) make(period)believe (space) 3D. What brought it home to me that this really was overkill was when a camera closed in and froze on a replay close to the signage. All I saw was the “Y” in Sony … but I knew it was Sony’s “Y”. Sony, like Visa (more on Visa in a second), had a unique opportunity, but added clutter.
   Seemed to me Visa was far and away the most effective. Their logo IS their name (unlike close seconds, McDonalds or Coke; who in turn felt compelled to complicate their flash with a golden arch and hobble-skirt shaped bottle – or Emirates, who felt compelled to speak that one extra word: Air Emirates). Visa, bought enough that, along with the strength of their logo name, was able to blanket the entire wrap around on a regular basis with an easy on the eyes texture.
   I’ve been told a “regular” billboard ought not carry more than seven words because that’s about all you can process as you drive by. These signage opportunities are even worse. “No one” is looking at them, they’re there for the game. Visa’s easy on the eye, whole wrap around texture provided a visual oasis against which game play occurred…and so for those reasons, to me, Visa won that particular aspect of the World Cup.

Eighty Year Old Fonts

   Interesting, doing some goofy work for a friend associated with the recovery community. I cannot find the matching font to their slogans! Has me now wondering if all the associated (to AA) fonts are "endangered or extinct".
   Is this a "business opportunity" (to recreate the fonts)? Is there a quintessential font repository? If this font, and any others (classically used by such an enormous network - especially the historic fonts and adornments) cannot be found, then at a minimum they need to be re-created. But here may be a collection opportunity as well! 
   You gotta figure one of their founders was a sales guy, so marketing was not an insensitivity. Some real thought went into their marketing material. Founded in the '30s, there's probably some post aesthetic / post deco period etc. Apparently I was looking for a German black letter font (thank you Barbara Nicolazzo). San Marco™ Cyrillic Roman comes closet; but it’s hard to pay for something (a font in this case) when it’s [a] just goofin’ and [b] still not exactly what you need. Anyway, the left is an "original" - the right is the just for fun parody. So, yes, there likely is a business opportunity here.

the BCRS presentation is complete (ahhhh)

   What fortunate luck; che fortuna fortuna! Under the hideous (I do not like online classes) circumstances of a “blended” class I had stellar teammates.
   Tons of cutting-edge marketing considerations were poured into this; as well as all the traditional, et.al. That this lends direct support to those who interact with this largest natural disaster in our country’s history (the BP/Deepwater/Halliburton Oil Spill) AND that this project has already begun to have a positive effect humbles me. I am looking forward to seeing how much of this gets adopted a year from now.
   Our final paper was 60 pages; I will spare you that. Just bear in mind it is nigh to impossible to fit everything into a ten-minute presentation. Please remember to synchronize up the audio (I do not embed because Microsoft has not found a way to really bind the files, and they invariable get disconnected). Also, note that there is a zip link as well as a straight download.
   Please let me know what you think.

Audio mp3 – 12.86MB – http://dl.dropbox.com/u/3539869/BCRS%20Coming%20to%20Market%20audio.mp3
Audio zip – 12.81MB – http://dl.dropbox.com/u/3539869/BCRS%20Coming%20to%20Market%20audio.zip
PowerPoint pptx – 19.81MB – http://dl.dropbox.com/u/3539869/BCRS%20Coming%20to%20Market%20PowerPoint.pptx
PowerPoint zip – 18.85MB –
http://dl.dropbox.com/u/3539869/BCRS%20Coming%20to%20Market%20PowerPoint.zip

Good-bye to the Middle tier of Ad Agencies?

   The Middle Class is Dead by Brent Choi (http://www.appliedartsmag.com/opinions.php?id=20) is a worthwhile quick read. It makes sense to organize information in graphic bites, and his three tiers of how things used to be makes some sense. His insistence on the convergence of the Internet, recession and global culture (particularly the global culture) is well placed. And he even mentions one of my all time favorite ad campaigns: the Dove Campaign for Real Beauty (aka, the Dove Self Esteem Fund; http://www.campaignforrealbeauty.com/).
   However, he also mentions "a marketer/agency speed dating service (yes, they exist)" ... really?! And he mentions the IAB. But is the latter The Interactive Advertising Bureau or The Internet Advertising Board?
   So, it's all confirming and engaging (leaving me with a few unnecessary yet interesting questions). But then his premise remains ostensibly un-argued. "So while a few of them will evolve and move up to Tier One or slide down to Three, many will stand still and die."
   Yes, we evolve. Things change and never quite look the same again. But isn't the either / or paradigm too easy to lean on? I wish he had made the case he had proposed, but it doesn't seem to have been made at all beyond that statement.
   (and PS: this is not Canadian specific).

The Dogs won't eat the Dog Food

   Gearing up for next week, the start of new classes at Keiser U, and they're both on Entrepreneurship. I was listening to a podcast yesterday, Basics of Entrepreneurship: Why Start-ups Fail at Marketing -- and Possible Solutions from the Wharton School (U Penn; posted: Tue, 02 Mar 10 21:37:41 -0500). Apparently the phrase used above as this blog's title is a term VC's use to describe start ups on their way out.
   Nuance of business culture is interesting to me, and it certainly makes for an interesting blog post title, but something else struck me as significantly more noteworthy. According to Leonard Lodish, the professor of marketing at Wharton speaking and co-author of two books, Entrepreneurial Marketing and Marketing That Works, 50-60% of start ups fail due to marketing error! Isn't that astounding?   http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/KnowledgewhartonInterviews/~3/ab4QajT0BNY/100127_StartUpsFailMarketing.mp3
   BTW, really good podcast - worth checking out!

the Wisdom of the Free

   I love the idea of giving away free stuff. From the “thinking out loud” file, here is some reasoning behind it. I've been consuming at such a clip of late I'm unclear how many of the following authors proposed this, but several of them did champion the wisdom of the free give-away as a method of ingratiating a potential client base. David Meerman Scott (in World Wide Rave: Creating Triggers that Get Millions of People to Spread Your ideas and Share Your Stories) may have. Seth Godin (in Free Prize Inside / Purple Cow) most likely did. And Joel Comm (in Twitter Power. How to Dominate Your Market One Tweet at a Time) most definitely forwarded the idea.
   Here's an example. I came across a friend on a social network who had asked for "some words of inspiration." My knee-jerk reaction was to seek something to forward, which I did.
   What I found was one of my all time favorite volumes, near as I can tell at first blush, in its entirety (http://www.google.com/url?sa=t&source=web&cd=9&ved=0CEIQFjAI&url=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.abuddhistlibrary.com%2FBuddhism%2FF-%2520Miscellaneous%2FMiscellaneous%2520Buddhism%2FEssays%2FArticles%2520by%2520various%2520teachers%2FMy%2520Favorite%2520Hafiz.pdf&rct=j&q=hafiz+laughing&ei=P5sgTM3lIYL88AaFm5R0&usg=AFQjCNE0N9ccsoAY-7TE1iBhP7XSqyFTCw&sig2=wb5g9MIqvYC5ZslXRmCcsQ) I Thought I Heard God Laughing was Daniel Ladinsky's first book.

   I was sensitive to this for several reasons. First, I count Dan as a personal friend. We loosely worked together years ago and have since crossed paths in pleasant quality. Second, I know full well that despite most of Dan's works having spent time on the New York Times bestseller list, poetry is not a commodity that will ensure multi-billions in revenue. So why would he have allowed a free pdf of his book?

   It turns out, however, this is a great example of the free. As I know Dan, he's hardly attached (if at all) to anything. This is an excellent condition to start with. One really needs to feel complete in letting something go. Next, God Laughing has likely peaked its monetizing time, which means what other use might it serve? Its next use may well be to establish long term traction for future word of mouth (Chris Anderson's The Long Tail: Why the Future of Business is Selling Less of More).

   To the degree to which the item has value, to that degree making it free will yield dividends. No, one doesn't want to give away everything. But in the balance, with perspective, one can see how such a dynamic can work well; even on an individual basis.

the BCRS - Web Design, Marketing & Business

   Working for the next week on the BCRS (Beach Conditions Reporting System) mock up, as a demonstration of marketing innovation. When the PowerPoint is done I'll look for a way to make it public.
   The BCRS is a very muscular website (http://coolgate.mote.org/beachconditions/) that as yet does not seem as accessible to the general public as it could be. We'll see.
   To the right is a proposed mascot I created, at least for the Kid's page(s) side; "Pearl". What animates about Pearl are her lashes and "the waves around her", (which always maintain an untouched spatial margin).
   Pearl is just one of, essentially, as many marketing ideas as seemed appropriate to throw in this direction. Handfuls of current leading edge marketing technology are being employed. Granted; a mascot such as Pearl is "old school".
   BTW, in case you have no interest in linking to the site it is intrinsic to the health of the Gulf Coast region; timely given the BP oil spill (NOT what I had in mind for the worlds largest oil painting). The work done on the BCRS has already begun to have positive repercussions. I expect the site will look and feel different by the end of the year, for the better.

Marketing the end of express line abuse

   I had offered my local WalMart management a suggestion that, apparently, I have to forward up the ladder for it to be heard (NOT good).

   Allow people with more than ___ (fill in the blank number of) items to get in the line, but post that for each item over that total they will also be charged an extra 50 cents with all (100% of) surcharges being evenly distributed to the following local charities (then list the charities). A win-win-win I can live with! ALL stores ought to do this. It would discourage express line abuse. For those truly in a hurry, but weighed the consequences: thanks for supporting our community!
   If you like this idea, carry it forward, talk about it, share it. Eventually it may catch on.

Animation & Business

   Came across Pamela Thompson Friday (June 18, 2010), an animator who has worked on Disney's Ratatouille, Bebe's kids and the Simpsons. Great lady; genuine, self effacing and down to earth. She was in town to give the Commencement address at the Art Institute. We met beforehand at a networking opportunity and she stopped back afterwards to briefly visit my class.

   Turns out she's working on a book on getting hired ... I shared with her the primary book I'm working on: Business & the Applied Arts. Looks like we'll be contributing to each other's works. I've already e-mailed her some significant files.

Blogger Buzz: Blogger integrates with Amazon Associates

Blogger Buzz: Blogger integrates with Amazon Associates