Thinking outside the drums.

Neurosonics Live

Drums: Will Clark

Turntables: JFB

Heads: Beardyman


Neurosonics Live from Chris Cairns on Vimeo.

4. Who cares? [March Trends]

[via trendwatching.com]

Today's remix culture is an asset, not a liability.

Another great remix by Australian dj Pogo.
Famous for his piece Alice, he had to face copyright issues once the track "Bangarang" was published on YouTube using samples from Spielberg's film "Hook". Sony P.E. removed the video but immediately, several YouTube users uploaded their own, previously saved versions of the video in protest.
-via Wikipedia

These is what Pogo thinks about it:

"My work serves as free viral marketing to the organisations that own the films I sample from. It's high time the music industry pulls its head out of its ass, and realises that today's remix culture is an asset, not a liability. To shoot down the potential here would be utterly illogical." [September 09]

After a month, Bangarang returned online, Pogo was commissioned by Disney Pixar to remix the recent movie UP, and therefore [?], tracks made before [Alice, Expialidocious, White Magic] pertaining other Disney properties has been hidden from Pogo's profile.

Talking about remix culture, I believe that the reason for this trend to be extremely popular and appreciated is because it taps mainly into two human needs: belonging and esteem. Being part of a group project, develop somebody else's idea, leads to a better sense of confidence, achievement, and respect. Before the internet however, creating a group or joining one implied many obstacles, such as finding people with common interests, setting a date and place to hold a meeting, and depending on the scale of the project organizing transfers to the selected place. It’s easy to see that the costs and the complexity were significant.
Internet is the technology that brought that selected place to meet, talk, and brainstorm in order to quickly and freely start projects together, share ideas with people once too far, and learn from lifestyles once unknown.
We then brought this growing philosophy to our real world, in brands, minds, and societies.
Collaboration and collaborative thinking are now pillars for many businesses' success, and communities.
Silicon Valley runs on a remix model, where new technologies and innovations are the results of ideas built on other people's, companies', minds' ideas.
It is nothing new, it is not a trendy concept, it always existed. It is not a fashion, which in a couple of months will leave for a trendier style.
It is and still will be a human need and basic trend for development.

A tool for Self-connection

For my Ad Research class, we had to present in front of Jon Konrath from Samsung our thoughts on the future of mobile phone.
A topic I was always interested in and that I strongly believe will be one of the main factor of our culture evolution.
Join me for thoughts and feedbacks.

Mobile Phone - A tool for Self-connection

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Funny enough, I just watched Pranav Mistry's TED talk on Sixth Sense Technology.

"Imagination is the only limit of what you can think of this technology merging with the real life."

Who is rich and who is poor? by Gaurav

One day, the father of a very wealthy family took his son on a trip to the country with the express purpose of showing him how poor people live.

They spent a couple of days and nights on the farm of what would be considered a very poor family.

On their return from their trip, the father asked his son, "How was the trip?"
"It was great, Dad."

"Did you see how poor people live?" the father asked.
"Oh yeah," said the son.

"So, tell me, what did you learn from the trip?" asked the father.

The son answered:
"I saw that we have one dog and they had four.
We have a pool that reaches to the middle of our garden and they have a creek that has no end.
We have imported lanterns in our garden and they have the stars at night.
Our patio reaches to the front yard and they have the whole horizon.
We have a small piece of land to live on and they have fields that go beyond our sight.
We have servants who serve us, but they serve others.
We buy our food, but they grow theirs.
We have walls around our property to protect us, they have friends to protect them."
The boy's father was speechless.
Then his son added, "Thanks Dad for showing me how poor we are."

Translate tu es tres mignon

If you watched the Super Bowl this evening you'll have seen a video from Google called "Parisian Love". In fact you might have watched it before, because it's been on YouTube for over three months. We didn't set out to do a Super Bowl ad, or even a TV ad for search. Our goal was simply to create a series of short online videos about our products and our users, and how they interact. But we liked this video so much, and it's had such a positive reaction on YouTube, that we decided to share it with a wider audience.

If you like it too, we hope you'll watch the others. Enjoy.

Posted by Eric Schmidt, CEO

[via GoogleBlog]

Focus on the drawing

"Living is like drawing but without an eraser" [M.F.]

"...the sea's only gifts are harsh blows

"...the sea's only gifts are harsh blows

and, occasionally, the chance to feel strong.

Now,

I don't know much about the sea,

but I do know that that's the way it is here.

And I also know how important it is in life not necessarily to be strong

but to feel strong,

to measure yourself at least once,

to find yourself at least once in the most ancient of human conditions,

facing blind, deaf stone alone,

with nothing to help you but your own hands and your own head..."

— Bear Meat by Primo Levi

Insights are subjective

My brief opinion on INSIGHTS.

I first tried to define what an insight is, but i quickly understood that is one of those things you can't define.

It's like ART, or CULTURE; they're everywhere but they can't be defined.

That makes an insight very subjective, for some enlightening and for others simply irrelevant, depending on context and situation.

With this presentation I prepared for my Ad Research class I wanted to give my favorite definition; what it's not an insight; and some examples that will confirm the subjectivity of the hot topic.

Comments and feedbacks are super welcome.

enJoy it!

Insights are subjective

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Why advertising?

Years ago, sitting at a bar with my dad in Lugano, I was talking about what I wanted to be in the future. I can only recall two of the jobs I mentioned: aerodynamic engineer and advertising.

The first one because my dream was to be an engineer for the F1 or the MotoGp; but advertising?

I have no idea how it came in my head, but I do remember saying almost exactly the same as Karl Lagerfeld did:

"I love advertisements. I'm fascinated by intelligent, brilliant ads: finding slogans that can tell a story in thirty seconds."

Funny story.

FA 09 - AAU SF

It's been almost a month since the Fall semester has gone and it's now time to sum up the most remarkable moments. The classes I took had been interesting and all of them were relevant with each others, which made everything even more exciting. I honestly can't rank them in order of preference for everyone of them taught me big pieces of the puzzle I'm trying to solve.

Anthropology gave me the chance to discuss about culture with students from different majors, ethnicities, and opinions. It showed me how few I actually know about culture, and how preconceived my ideas are. It made me look at the world and at the people with different lenses, letting them talk to me rather than make up my own assumptions. It also provided me with concepts that I want to develop to use in research and strategy studies.
Thanks Rachel for the most interesting LA class so far.

Account Planning 2, despite the not-so-cool [.......] brand our groups got assigned, has been useful to understand briefs better.

Brand&Branding, mainly thanks to the good group, was very fun; working on the Flip project has been exciting, challenging, and ultimately useful. The fact of having the other [great] group and AKQA working on the same account, pushed us to do better and better, reaching "Ultra" satisfying results. Thanks Brittany, Rob, Han, and Paris for the work; and David for the help throughout the process.

Digital Strategies. For sure, the most relevant, remarkable, and rewarding class of my 5 semesters at the AAU. Even though not understandable at all for the first 5 weeks, Virginia's class taught me how to look at the digital in a more efficient way, relating the online with the offline, analyzing emerging behaviors, improving brand experiences, and giving me a much clearer view on the internet potential. The challenging yet playful atmosphere in class brought me to better understand important concepts, leading me to my personal best project [link to safeway].
Big thanks to Virginia and her "sweet spot" graph!

Looking forward to the Spring '10 semster, Happy 2010 from St. Petersburg

Doing without doing with Itay Talgam

My friend Charaf shared with me this incredible lesson on how to "lead like a great conductor"; a TED talk by Itay Talgam who compares different orchestra conductors' styles and connects them with the concept of leadership.

Best quotes:

"... in front of all that noise you do a very small gesture, something like this, not very pump, very sophisticated. This. And suddenly out of the chaos, order. Noise becomes music." [0:37]

"the joy is about enabling other people's stories to be heard at the same time." [3:48]

Miami Art Basel 09 - Highlights

Miami, 12.2-6.09

8 of the many artworks worth a note exhibited at the 2009 Art Basel in Miami.

Alex Prager - Polyester

Erika Blumenfeld - Apparent Horizon

Hiroshi Senju - Falling color

J.F. Rauzier - Paris

Pascal Haudressy - Somewhere we will meet again [art installation]

Christopher Winter - Skipping School

Hung Chih Peng - Canine Monk [video]

Thomas Kellner, Washington Lincoln Memorial

Thanks to Tommy and Stefano for the unique opportunity to attend such a great event.

Greetings to Eli, Brit and her parents, "Coka-Cola" the most Miami-like person I've ever met, his friends, "Simoncelli" the most lost person I've ever seen, Cookie and Robi from Tasis, Madison, and the "school bus".

To B.R.

Rhino | Horse | Plane

-Miami Art Basel 09, the Apopotamus

Join Me for 2

From a little dorm room on Nob Hill to the StarMotel in the Marina to the 3rd floor of a brick-wall apartment overlooking the Golden Gate Park, JMB has been a mean to share interests, ideas, and thoughts of mine.

Today, December 13th 2009, Join Me for 2 years of Breakfasts.

-the Apopotamus

Join Toys for Tots

This Thursday night, join us for Recess at Sloane, and switch your currency to toys.

Toys for Tots

Apo and Paris on Digital Safeway

It all started with the idea that "what if when shopping online, Safeway could automatically set a reminder for you sometime before the expiration date of the items purchased?"

From there, Paris and I developed the idea bringing it to life "at the pier", with the help of seagulls, sea lions, the sun and the wind of San Francisco.

We noticed how Safeway was simply meeting customers expectations while it should be surpassing them in order to keep up with todays digital trends.

We submitted it for the Annual Academy of Art University Winter Show, now let see what the judges have to say.
As Paris wrote, "We are both quite pleased with it, hope you find it interesting."

Thanks for joining.

Apo and Paris on Digital Safeway

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4 days in a movie

Finally, after two years of living in San Francisco, I made it to Los Angeles for the first time.

The reasons were to see my two good friends from home Tommy and Ale, and to attend the Hard Fest. Landed on Friday morning, we had lunch in Venice Beach, and walked among musicians, street teams, entertainers, skaters, surfers, body builders, dogs, art, culture, and california.

Walking on the streets where American History x was shot felt good and I couldn't expect a better start. After a short walk we drove to Royal T a gallery/cafe/restaurant hosting different sponsors and guests every 3 weeks. There, while Tommy and Ale were working as waiters, I "enjoyed" Hello Kitty in all its forms, from necklaces to telephones, from bags to skirts, from accessories to food. After a coffee I left the two working and took the car to visit my former roommate Casey. It was great hanging out at his place for a couples of hours and getting updated on his life and feeling like we were still living together.

At night, after the club we ended up on the Hollywood hills at some friends' place for a relaxing swim enjoying drinks and lights of the city down under. The following days were spent driving around, seeing the different areas, trying restaurants, lounges, and stores. For the whole time I could not believe I was driving around LA with two friends I've been knowing and living in Switzerland for 10 years. It felt good and most of all it felt like a movie. On Sunday when both of them were working during the day I decided to go for a ride on the bus, as I usually like to do every time I'm alone in a new city. Leaving from Marina del Rey, the ride showed me Crenshaw, Mid-City, Fairfax, stopping on Hollywood Blvd. Following the famous Walk of Fame I entered in the super luxurious restaurant designed by Philippe Starck for a quick look, and ended up on Sunset Blvd and after quite a walk I took the bus and went back at Royal T.

About the Hard Fest:

Crookers were undoubtedly the best performance of the night! Followed by Steve Aoki and his Warp, the french duo Justice from whom I was expecting much more, and same for Deadmau5. The biggest disappointment, though, were Basement Jaxx whose dj set was too hardcore when the crowd was just warming up.

At 4 we were desperately looking for a McDonald open but we eventually opted for a foot long Subway. Good choice that was!

On the flight back, before I fell asleep I found this cool video.

Moving from mindless to mindful consumption

No other comments needed.

@bakedin #rose

This is the continuation of my Tweet regarding the chapter "A rose by any other name would not sell as sweetly" of the super recommended book Baked In.

I think that the name is absolutely part of the baking in a product, and I agree even more that this name should have a connection with culture.

But I don't agree that numbers and cities should be "banned" from products' names.

I think there are at least two ways to link a brand with culture, either by joining it, or by creating one.

Often, brands with HISTORY (not stories) don't need a name that connect with culture, for THEIR NAME is culture, and they can use numbers, cities.

Think about the 911 (see, I don't even need to say the brand), the Vespa 90SS, the MV 750 F4, the Ducati 916, the Audi R8, RS4,.......; think about the Ferrari 550 Maranello (poetry in a name, BECAUSE of the city).

So, my thought is that brands should first define themselves in the context of culture: are they PART of the culture? Or are THEY the culture?

With that in mind, they can then name their products in order to TELL stories, or to CONTINUE History.

Either join the culture, or create a culture;

in the ladder case though you better have something exclusive.

[via UrbanDictionary]