Werner Vogels is CTO of Amazon.com; an academic, a researcher, scientist, engineer and zeitgeist. Though a more fitting title should perhaps be ‘rainmaker’ as he is also known as one of the founding fathers of ‘the cloud.’ This is Werner.
The Urban Medium
The importance of an open API has been exemplified earlier on this blog. I would like to stress the importance of what I call a U.API (Urban Application Programming Interface). A U.API is a next generation urban medium.
Resist the temptation to get a job. Instead, play. Find something you enjoy doing. Do it. Over and over again. You will become good at it for two reasons: you like it, and you do it often. Soon, that will have value in itself.
Time Share
We (humans) need to embrace the concept of operating systems (OS), no longer trying to own and control all the information possible in a race to learn, spell, write, subtract, multiply and recite better than the next man. Learning to open up and start sharing, sourcing and referencing others, allowing people to pick our brains before we perhaps have even finished putting our thoughts together on paper, opening up our personal API.
Sometimes it’s important to be reminded that advertising can still be great, especially when there is intelligence, insight, creativity and two power houses like BBH and The Guardian behind it. This is one story just makes you think, oh my god, i’ve fallen in love again with the power of ‘a story well told.’
Amen
We recently discovered this app and it’s perfect for a select group of people that we know and love well. This is the app for someone with a strong opinion, incapable of keeping it to themselves. For the guy or girl who loves nothing better than to rant, share a little online hate and maybe a little bit of love.
There’s something sacred about reading a blog post on someone else’s site. It’s like visiting a friend’s house for a quick meal ’round the breakfast table. It’s personal — you’re in their space, and the environment is uniquely suited for idea exchange and uninterrupted conversation. In many ways, we should be treating our blogs like our breakfast tables. Be welcoming & gracious when you host, and kind & respectful when visiting.
Marketing Virgins
People, marketers and agencies all over the globe appear more disillusioned than ever and uncertain as to what the future holds for them and their craft.
It’s apparent that since the late 1980’s somebody ripped all the fun out of advertising. Hence the ‘rose tinted glasses’ everyone dons when watching HBO’s Madmen to reminisce of the ‘good old days’, the days where agencies were able to drink, party, seduce and elope between 9 and 5 and quickly fit it an award winning multi million dollar idea before cocktails at 6.
Optimism + Pessimism = Progress
Why is it that most of the time opposites really do attract? What’s the logic? Most of the time the most successful optimistic people in life seem to be paired with realists and not with equally optimistic partners or equally pessimistic partners.
One Minute Wonder’s
One minute wonders is just that. An intimate series of video portraits of a hand picked selection of imaginative people, telling their personal story in 60 seconds flat.
These have been produced with very little editing for the numerous that we have had the fortune of meeting or working with over the course of the last few years, allowing them to tell their story in a mass-intimate format. A snapshot of the individual behind the brand, company, website or paint brush.
This video series is a celebration of creativity in every sense of the word, an ongoing ever-expanding collage of artists, entrepreneurs, curators, designers, developers and rain-makers. People who live within a moment in time that we define as the Present Plus.
