Small Ways You Can Change the World Now

TED is the grand daddy of world change. In fact TED is the inspiration of the name of this blog from many years ago. They have compiled a playlist of 10 of their videos focused on small ways to change the world. The little things that you (yes, you) can do now (yes, now) to make a difference. It's a great way to inspire us all to do great things. I often ask people, if you had to give a TED talk right now, what would it be about? 

WHAT IS YOUR TED TALK GOING TO BE?

Here are three of my favorites from the list. 



AppleWatch & The Internet of Strings

If you haven't noticed today is the day that the AppleWatch finally arrives. I'm having mixed feelings about whether I want one or not, I think that watches are almost useless ever since I've had a mobile phone in my pocket, but if my history predicts my future than I'm sure I will have one soon.

I have always loved gadgets. They captivated me as a boy, high up in my attic bedroom in early 80's Boston. I used to hook up strings around my room all leading back to my bed. One to turn off the light switch and another to turn it back on, one for the stereo power, another for the tape play button. I used to sit in my bed, pulling wires, adding things up on my calculator watch, reading Choose Your Own Adventure Books, listening to the mix tapes I recorded off of the radio and dreaming about the future...

In 1986 this future came into vision so clearly - My dad stepped up to the plate and bought a brand new remote controlled TV just for the Red Sox World Series and as you can imagine my head exploded, "Wireless Remote Controlled Television", Holy Shit! This changed everything. I had one less string to worry about and more importantly, I no longer had to be the human powered "get up and change the channel" remote for my dad.  (actual TV below)

Three years later I won a Cellular Phone on KISS 108FM. The phone was huge, the size of a mini briefcase and the monthly costs were over $100. It took 10 hours to charge for 30 mins of talk time. Not much has changed here :), but I was 17 and didn't have any money to pay my bill - so that lasted for about two months... (actual phone below)

Pretty soon I was surrounded by all of this:

Fast Forward 20 Years...

Simple, Easy, All Encompassing...

Not sure I want to add another device to my simplified system, but I might just enjoy not having to pull the iPhone  "string" out of my pocket over 200 times a day, that alone might be the kicker....

Robots and the Future of Marketing

My 6 year old son's dream is to go to MIT and make robots that help the world. He wants to make a refrigerator that transforms into a robot chef that will cook, serve and clean for you and then pop back into a refrigerator at night. He also wants to make a robot that will pop-up from the sidewalk when a homeless person is walking by and give them a basket full of food. His brain is always thinking about robots that help our world and make our lives easier, if you watched Oscar Winner, Big Hero 6 than you know that nerds, science and robotics are the future, duh ;).

Right now our vision of robots is skewed based on books and science fiction films, most of us think that robots look human like, they walk, talk, and dance and generally are competing with humans in appearance and function.  The reality is that robots look much more like the arms you see in a factory making cars, or the semi-annoying voice you hear when you call the cable company when you want to trouble-shoot your WIFI, or source code of computer program.

There are over 1,000,000 robots in the world with half of them in Japan and just 15% in the US. Out of these, about 50% of those are making cars while the rest are assembling products, doing surgeries, bomb-detecting, cleaning up toxic waste, serving us online ads, content and doing the stuff that many humans don't really want to do or can't do as efficiently. 

So what does that mean for us as marketers and brands? How can we embrace this robotic future?

Experiential
We see this robotic trend emerging at trade shows, events, in-store and pop-up stores with the whole goal to pull us in and get our attention. Brands are integrating robots into their marketing experiences to stand out and connect themselves to the future, in fact there a many companies out there that will rent you robots for this purpose.

Content Creation
Publishers and brands are using robots to create custom content for their sites and social channels, they scrape sports scores, weather and other topics to automate content delivery for their readers. Brands have also used robots to respond to fans in social media during the Super-Bowl. Some people describe this as marketing automation but remember robots don't have to look human or even have a physical presence.

Advertising
Nowhere is robotics so prevalent in marketing than online advertising. There are robots right now watching you read this article and soon you will go somewhere else and a robot ad will appear next to you. There are robots crawling the internet looking for patterns and selling those patterns to the highest bidders through Google ad-words and other ad buying systems. They all speak the language of algorithms and its your job to understand the basics of this language in order to be successful.

 

 


 

Will Cinemagraphs Take Over the World?

Try to stop looking at the following cinemagraphs -aka- super produced gifs for brands:

Armani-Coffee-615.gif

There is a big trend brewing out there that is taking the power of gifs to the next natural place. It's called Cinemagraphs and sounds all fancy, but you may have just noticed that they are beautiful and mesmerizing. The trend for brands to jump in is making its way to Facebook and Instagram by trying to hack autoplay and make you stop and become hypnotized by the beauty and simplicity.


Sitting Is The New Smoking (Hint It's Killing You)

If you have ever met me in person I have a hard time sitting down for too long. I'm generally a relaxed person, except when it comes to movement. I'm always walking around the office at a fast pace and I tend to walk everywhere for hours at a time. Whether I'm traveling or exploring Brooklyn on foot, I'm always on the move. I have a hard time sitting through a long movie like "Boyhood", or taking a plane when I can't get up and walk up and down the aisle a few times or stand in the back galley chatting with the crew. I think you get the point, I have the natural inclination to not sit too much and I think that it's healthy, but I'm always looking for ways to improve.

If you have been following the evidence and research about sitting and the latest trends for standing desks, you might also think twice about sitting all day and mix up the types of chairs you sit on and how often you sit. Instead of trying to grab a seat on the bus or subway, stand, instead of having a long meeting sitting have a standing meeting. Set your computer's printer on the other side of the office, switch your favorite chair once in a while or sit on the floor.... so many possibilities...


New and Improved - Advertising Backstory

One of my favorite podcasts is "BackStory with the American History Guys". They do an amazing job of breaking down things that are happening today and explore the real history over the past three centuries to provide a perspective that helps ground you in the real reality of today's media hyped environment. I have many favorites but their latest episode hits homes for Marketers. 

New & Improved - Advertising in America - This episode is critical for any marketers to understand the history behind advertising and PR and tackles questions like: When did the industry come into being? What makes a great commercial jingle? And how do you sell America on the idea of lunar exploration?

You're Wearing the Wrong Socks - 2015 Tech Trends

There are a number of start-ups that specialize in fitness technology blooming out there and they are there to help the regular fitness minded individual assess how they move and train, its not just for the Ivan Drago's of the world now. We are moving way beyond just monitoring your vital signs with wearable devices to a much deeper look at your form and the way in which you move to improve upon quality of your work-out, health and life. 

Here are a few of the companies diving deep into this space:

Sensoria smart socks are infused with comfortable, textile pressure sensors. They inform you in real-time when you are striking with the heel or the ball of your foot. Monitor your foot-landing technique as you run. Visualize the foot heat-map on the Sensoria Fitness mobile app.

Moov differentiates itself in both hardware and software. While tracking your step counts and calories reminds you to get out and get active, Moov is able to translate your exact movement into coaching capable of bringing your fitness and workout experience to a whole new level.

LEO translates complex information from your body into simple and actionable recommendations, and notifies you when something is amiss.

There are a bunch more, but I think you get the point! You're doing it all wrong on your own and you need help!

Watch this space!!