So this is the second coming.
The reincarnation.
The what in tarnation?
The SON OF BLOG.
A colleague of mine, MJ ( I don't want to name drop), who has one of the most popular Blogs in the land, referred me to a book titled Hey, Whipple, Squeeze This: A Guide to Creating Great Ads by, Luke Sullivan. It's quite marvellous and I am quite enjoying it. It's relevant to this post and there's more on that below.
I deleted the previous Burgeon Verger for a reason.
It was OLD. Sunset Manor OLD. Shady Pines OLD. Last year OLD.
It doesn't take much to make anything so 5 minutes ago and that, my children, is the real impact of this series of tubes we call our INTERNET. It is ours, after all and what makes it ours is our ability to SHARE what matters.
"Technology" has created extreme and exceptional circumstances wherein we are able to remain connected 24/7. Extreme, you ask? Yeah verily. My children, think upon what you were doing at 2AM approximately 20 years ago. I guarantee that whatever you were doing then you aren't doing TONIGHT. Tonight you are connected. But it's an addictive connectedness (I berry in my sleep. Thumbs akimbo and warning warning a simile approacheth...) like the urge to chew that spot on the inside of your cheek that you accidentally bit when you sneezed. "Technology" - as wonderful as it is, it's impact on our lives is extreme and sometimes we furrow our brows and sigh a nostalgic breath in memory of rotary phones long forgotten. (For those of you who don't know, it took so long to dial a number you'd just get in the LeSabre and drive there instead.)
But the INTERWEB...now that's a side of tech that you just have to love because it's more than just a tool that ensures connectedness, it's about SHARING. In a world where post-apocalyptic "you'll die a horrible and graphic death due to a scratch you got while selflessly breaking into an animal testing lab and freeing simians infected with a rage inducing virus" prevails...the word SHARE is a welcome motif.
The only place we, as growed-ups, see the prompt SHARE on a regular basis is on-line. (Unless you are in catechism class. But how many of you are in catechism class? What great word, catechism. That's what I'm calling my next kitten. I digress.) Yes, sharing is the new opposable thumb. Did the missing link share? Only a tad. Did cro-magnon man share? Barely a whit. But medieval man...now THAT was sharing. "Plague, anyone?" It is civilized MAN that shares his collection of Peter Pan outfits, parasitic tapeworms and disdain for David Blaine. The series of tubes is but a conduit for MAN'S innermost thought.
The Internet is to SHARING as KRAFTWERK is to RADIOHEAD. That's right, I said it.
Remember back in the day when when we called the Internet cyberspace? (Then it was pronounced sssssssyyyyyyybrrrrrrsppppaaaaaaasssssse in a whisper. It was cool and full of mystery, subversivness and all your bombs are belong to us!) Remember how NEW MEDIA companies were being radical by calling themselves CYBERsomethingorother? Remember that? No? How could you forget it was only 5 minutes ago?
Speaking of remembering...do you remember Mr. Peabody and the WayBack Machine? No don't Google that, Twitchy Finger. Leave that track pad alone and concentrate. Does that moniker mean anything to you? If it means something to you, you'll Blog about it tonight because you'll say "Oh yeah! I forgot about that show. I loved that show". If it doesn't you'll look it up and embed the wrong link on your page like so:
http://www.archive.org/index.php
To some of us, Mr. Peabody and Jay Ward meant something. We want to SHARE what it meant. And then we want you to SHARE what our sharing means to you. It's therapeutic. It's a circle of chairs and there's coffee and cigarettes and stories and bad muffins. The interweb is therapy. That's exactly what it is.
Except when it's social experimentation. Social labs. Beaker, Blogger. Test tube, Youtube. The list goes on...and here's some proof ...I have that fakebook page and you probably got here from there. That's not even me but it's my picture and those are my friends (you're on of them) and I made it a goal to have over 100 people accept my invitation to join my list of fakebook friends within 48 hours and it happened. Right across the planet it happened. And I asked each and every one of you to accept me and my nom de plume into your bosoms and you did. And I thank you for that. I really do and that is the irony in the whole thing. Except that there's even more irony because if those are all of my friends then that is me? Am I a new me now that my fakebook profile is populated by my friends and pictures of me? Even if that's not what I wanted in the first place? And why do I all of a sudden feel like SHARING? Now that you're part of my fboo group, all I want to do is SHARE. I never would have written this if you hadn't accepted my invitation.
All that being said SHARING is so 5 minutes ago. So let's change the topic because I'm bored. The purpose of this blog is to THINK ABOUT BRANDS AND THEIR MANIFESTATION ON THE INTERWEB. WHAT HAPPENS TO A BRAND IN A DIGITAL SPACE? ALL THAT BRILLIANT WRITING I'VE BEEN READING ON STRATEGY AND CREATIVE STRATEGY AND THE CREATIVE PROCESS AND ALL OF IT...(THANKS MB) IT'S BRILLIANT BUT HOW DO YOU APPLY THAT KNOWLEDGE HERE? IN THIS SPACE? CAN YOU? CAN WE? THAT'S WHY SON OF BLOG WAS BORNDED. WHAT DO WE DO NOW? NOW THAT WE HAVE ALL THE ACCUMULATED KNOWLEDGE ABOUT ADVERTISING WHAT DO WE DO WITH IT HERE? THE OLD RULES DON'T APPLY. AT LEAST NOT THE WAY THEY USED TO APPLY. HOW DO WE APPLY THE RULES AND MAKE THIS RELEVANT WHEN RELEVANCE IS SO 5 MINUTES AGO?
Check back. Find out. Gimme 5.
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