The paperback would make a great gift for the season, but for now it’s only available as digital edition (PDF, ePub & Mobi).
I couldn’t resist the visual goodness and the chance to get inside the mind of one the great designers on this field (Jon designed Firefox’s logo) and rewarded myself with one.
From ideation to drawing tips, web or application icons, this is one of the best references on icon design available, further confirmed by the great feedback on Twitter.
I'm only about halfway through The Icon Handbook by @Hicksdesign, but it's already worth it. Fantastic job: http://t.co/JpxLuidV
One of the best ways to empower ou creativity is to stand on the shoulder of giants. From David Ogilvy to Hegarty there’s plenty to choose from.
Yet, there’s one an advertising agency founder that has been forgotten, that 50 years ago was already discussing issues like sustainability or escort bayan interconnectivity. Oh, and he also brought to San Francisco an obscure canadian academic named Marshall McLuhan.
The giant i’m writing about is Howard Luck Gossage. A critic but also reformer of the advertising industry, his thoughts are remarkably modern and fit to our interactive age:
“The real fact of the matter is that nobody reads ads. People read what interests them. Sometimes it’s an ad.”
“Our first duty is not to the old sales curve, it is to the audience.”
“Copywriters are very strange people who have only reached copywriting after eliminating every other means of making a living through writing”
“If you have something pertinent to say, you neither have to say it to very many people –only to those who you think will be interested–nor do you have to say it very often. How many times do you have to be told that your house is on fire?”
“First, what is the difference between seeing an ad on a billboard and seeing an ad in a magazine? The answer, in a word, is permission”
“To explain responsibility to advertising men is like trying to convince an eight-year-old that sexual intercourse is more fun than a chocolate ice cream cone.”
“In which a guy clearly does not set out to change the world, but does so, then denies he ever did, and has a whole bunch of people over for drinks who will all go on to become famous and miss him for the rest of their lives” — Jeff Goodby
For the past 3 years, dozens of leading marketeers, writers and thinkers have collaborated on a book that brings some of the best insights on modern marketing. Led by Drew McLellan and Gavin Heaton, this third book in the Age of Conversation series brings together authors from across the world, with diverse and practical insights for the changing nature of business today.
Chapters include topics like Conversational branding, Influence, Getting to work, Corporate conversations, Measurement, In the boardroom, Innovation and execution, Pitching social media and Identities (the topic I wrote a short essay for).
With cover illustration by Chris Wilson and our new publisher Channel V Books (from co-authors Gretel Going & Kate Fleming), i’m counting on you to order a copy once it’s released, specially considering the sales profits are donated to the Make-A-Wish Foundation.
The year was 2006, and the trend formerly know as Web 2.0 was in full steam. A group of brilliant folks decided to organize the first edition of Shift Conference in Portugal. I managed to find some free time and attended one of the workshops, on the theme of “Creativity” with Dannie Jost and Henriette Weber Andersen. Two years later, Henriette has really pushed the envelope further, both professionally and personally, with her latest achievement in the form of a free eBook: Why every company should be a rockband.
While working for companies with start ups and online marketing and PR, she also helped bring passion to the communities she’s involved, and continued her involvement with Shift as a Super Duper Advisor .
Unfortunately, i wasn’t able to attend the talk where Henriette presented the ideas on the book, but as a big fan of her personal rockband, i’ve asked her a few questions she kindly accepted to answer.
Henriette, Toothless Tiger, avant garde social business expert: who are you really ?
Who am I really ? I am a lady from the north hunting integrity, authenticity, remarkability, creativity, and trustworthiness in business all over the world. I am a first mover within tech and business and how to implement the ways and ideas of the internet in organizations. Heck some people even call me a guru =)
At Shift, we had a first glimpse on “why every company should be a rockband”, that has now been self published as a book. Sounds like there’s a story here, and i’d love you to share how this book was born and the main ideas discussed on it.
Well the book was born because my own book deal in Denmark got canceled. it’s not that I cry myself to sleep every night over it, it just shows that when you’re battling in places where i am battling – the publishing industry does not understand. I have felt it on my own body that publishing houses wants to make everything mainstream. I think mainstream is so incredibly boring and without attitude. It makes everything become normal. meh. Anyway I decided to make my own publishing house (called Toothless Tiger Press), where nothing had to be mainstream – it could be as quirky and strange and wonderful excentric, and all the power over the works had to be in the hands of the author. To make Toothless Tiger Press I needed to have an ebook. People at shift really loved the talk so I decided to work a bit longer on the slides and turn them into an ebook. It collided with my blog post on the 7th of December on 24ways.org – it was a blast and now it’s out there and people are sending me mails to say thank you – it rocks =).
The main idea in the ebook is that the world has changed and it doesn’t look a bit like “business as usual”. Still we conduct business as usual. s. It heavily related on some blogposts I have done on toothlesstiger.com for the past year arguing that “the business of business needs to be more than business”. and that’s the main idea. It’s a way of changing the world. which is also why I hope that everybody will read this ebook and react on it, and spread the ebook like wildfire – in some way – making something more.
Bands have groupies. Companies have …
groupies too and fans. Groupies are the hardcore people surrounding your company and who can’t live without it. Fans are more moderate. You need to work on getting people who purchase your products to first become customers, then to become fans, and if you’re lucky they will become groupies as well.
We’re both very interested in creativity. Bands have it, the web as lots of it, but companies are usually stifling it. Are companies behaving like the music industry instead of focusing in being rock bands?
I think that the creativity is lacking in companies because of control. In some companies it’s extremely hard and I think that some companies are acting as the music industry. let it go man. You can’t control the chaos of the web. it should not be managed – it should be lead. so let go of the command and control mentality, it doesn’t really belong in a rockband (or in the music industry – but I guess they are waking up to see that)
Game time. Match each one of the brands / companies below with a rock band.
(I haven’t given these much consideration so I hope I won’t be held responsible that much) Nokia : R.E.M Motorola: Lordi
This October 29th, the new book Age Of Conversation 2 is released, a unique collaboration with bloggers from 29 US States and from 14 other nations from Australia to the Ukraine.
Book cover by David Armano
I am fortunate of being part of this conversation as a co-author, doing my best to promote this initiative (expect a podcast next week), as proceeds of the book, available in hardcover, softcover an a downloadable e-book, will be donated to Variety, the international children’s charity.
Each author contributed with one essay, with mine entitled “A new brand of creative: Things fall apart. To know more about AOC2, you can check out the site at The Age Of Conversation.
Thibault Imbert is a System Engineer at Adobe France, with several years developing in the Flash platform with a personal playground at ByteArray.org, and side projects at WiiFlash or AlivePDF.
Last year, he wrote a book on Actionscript 3, and just when all was set to publish, the whole process went void(0). So what’s a writer to do? Well, of course, in the best spirit of Flash community: let’s opensource-it !
Thibault has now released the full Actionscript book, “Pratique dActionScript 3″, in PDF for download. FREE. Not as in beer, but it gets close.
Be a good sport and remind to hit that Paypal button. I donated a cheap 5€, the least i could do considering all the hard work Thibault had. And it’s a fine way to refresh my French skills.
By us, i mean the 275 co-authors of “The Age Of Conversation: Why Don’t People Get It?”, this year’s edition of The “Age Of Conversation”, a collaborative book on the future of marketing, which i was proudly invited to co-author (thanks Drew, Chris and Gavin).
Having blogged about it last year, i haven’t actually reviewed it, something that i should get used to – isn’t it cool when Joseph Jaffe sends you his book to review – as i’m now reading several great inspirations (you can find my current reading on the left). The least i can do to help these great community effort (profits are donated to charity), is to ask my great readers:
The Age of Conversation book brings together over 100 of the worlds leading marketers, writers, thinkers and creative innovators in a ground-breaking and unusual publication. All of the proceeds generated from book sales and referrals will be donated to Variety, The Childrens Charity. Using the link above, all referral fees will (again) be donated to charity.
This is a global effort, and one more great example of the collaborative power the web has brought to us. I’m truly excited to be a part of this year’s book authors:
Ufff. That’s a huge set. More blogs than a feed reader could manage, so a book it’s one of the best ways to get a grasp of their author’s insights. Wait, don’t close the window yet. If you’re not inclined to buy the book, there’s other ways you can help.
Digg Chris post or save it on your favorite social boookmarkeing service
Talk about it with your friends, by email, IM or by the water cooler.
And let’s indeed have a conversation. I now that with Twitter, FriendFeed et al, you’re probably hanging out at other cool places, but i miss your comments. Drop a line once in a while, so the leprechaun that writes for this site feels appreciated. Thanks.
Having just read Seth Godin’s book Meatball Sundae, it was a lot of fun seeing him showcased in one of his purple cows, the blender video series from Blendtec. Here’s the video:
Altough at first i was expecting the victim would be the whole book, this was a nice take. And again, do buy the book (and please offer a few more to those old fashioned monolitic CMOs you always complain about).
What if all of your delayed book orders arrived on the same day ?
You’ll get a good reading list for design technologists, something to keep you busy for the next 3 months.
Meatball Sundae is the book every CEO should read next year. Or any CMO. Or any senior manager. What the heck, EVERYBODY should read it. And it shipped today.
A meatball sundae is the unfortunate result of mixing two good ideas.
The meatballs are the foundation, the things we need (and sometimes want). These are the commodities that so many businesses are built on.
The sundae toppings (hot fudge and the like) are the New Marketing, the social networks, Google, blogs and fancy stuff that make people all excited.
The challenge most organizations face: they try to mix them. They attempt to slap new marketing onto old and end up with nothing but a failed website.
This book explores the 14 trends that are changing our world and how organizations can either embrace them or be punished by them.
.
(just offered 2)