If you hadn’t heard: I lost my laptop and even more tragically my flight log book (seen here) in the back of a London cab about two weeks ago. I’ve only now caught up with the back log and started to re-assemble my life and you will start hearing from me again on a weekly basis.

I stumbled across a couple of brilliant interactive art pieces over the last couple of weeks (via some smart friends of mine – Damion Parsons and Colleen DeCourcy). The first one is not very digital at all – it’s the ultimate “Human Interface” titled Hi. Effectively it’s a guy in a box that looks like a Microsoft surface performing all the computer functions himself. Entertaining and awesome – it’s a must watch and share video.

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From Vimeo:

Concept, design and high-tech by multitouch-barcelona.com
Music: wake up, wake up by lullatone.com
Filmed at hangar.org
hi-res pics at flickr.com/photos/multitouchbarcelona

The interactive installation “I Want You To Want Me”, by Jonathan Harris and Sep Kamvar, commissioned by the Museum of Modern Art, for their “Design and the Elastic Mind” exhibition.

I Want You To Want Me explores the search for love and self in the world of online dating. It chronicles the world’s long-term relationship with romance, across all ages, genders, and sexualities, using real data collected from Internet dating sites every few hours.

The piece is presented on a 56″ high-resolution touch-screen, hanging vertically on the wall, and was installed at MoMA on February 14, 2008, Valentine’s Day.

Which one do you like better?

This week I had a friend make a digital copy of my log book that I’ve been keeping since I was a kid. It has every flight I’ve ever taken in it since I was just over 3 months old. I’ve accumulated over 700 flights and 150 trans Atlantic crossings and I still take it on every flight. When I board the plane I give the book to the captain (typically through a flight attendant) and have the book recorded and signed in their own hand writing.

It is truly my most prized possession in the world as it’s the only material possession I own that’s not replaceable.

I thought it was about time I did this for safety’s sake if nothing else.

Check it out here: http://takemetoyourleader.com/logbook/

I recommend jumping to the 20th page where all the flights start, but the comments the captains leave are really classic ranging from funny to sentimental and they get better and better as time goes on and the book becomes a rich piece of history. I’ve had captains tell me their father’s had signed it or that they signed it once before 10 years ago.

I’m going to add a permanent menu link to the site to access the book and will keep it updated. I’m doing about 80 flights a year right now so it changes pretty rapidly.

Around this time of year I tend to get pretty sentimental. The holidays, my birthday, and then in early February the anniversary of my father’s death all make me crave some positive memories to keep him fresh in my mind. For those of you who don’t know me personally my father was my best friend, my #1 business adviser, and my mentor.  He had a full life when he passed away, but that does not mean I still don’t miss him like crazy and think about it him every day.

This week a gentleman named Robert Chandler (who owns the agency General Levitation) reached out to me to introduce himself and ask if he could tell me a story about my father.  To the best of my memory it’s the only story I’ve ever heard about my father directly interacting with advertising thus it has extra special meaning to me. I hope you enjoy it in Robert’s words (since he is a copywriter after all)….

“Back in the late 70s, I was a young group head at Chiat/Day in Los Angeles.  Your dad and Jay, both being bright, pioneering mavericks were a perfect fit, and Jay won us an opportunity to pitch the Laker Airways account.

Jay assigned me and my little group to develop the campaign.  We came up with something that was a hit internally, so I started preparing for the big presentation day.

Now I had been in the business long enough to have met with clients on a regular basis (even scary guys like Ernest Gallo).  And I’d presented many campaigns to existing clients.  But, I’d never been the creative lead on a new business pitch before and was uncharacteristically nervous.  Hy Yablonka, Chiat’s first creative director and a partner with Jay and Guy Day bucked me up and convinced me that I was more than ready to make a pitch.

At the appointed hour, the Laker delegation arrived.  Because Laker was a small smart airline and not a big dumb one, there were only three people:  The head of marketing.  A second person probably his assistant.  And your dad.  Sir Freddie Himself.

The usual preliminaries and setups were attended to by our marketing guys and media.  Then creative stood up.  Me.

I pitched the campaign which was built around the kickoff ad billboarding the theme:  “Cross the Atlantic without getting soaked.”

The campaign, in addition to a collection of cheeky full page newspaper ads and outdoor featured a very simple spot.  It featured a spokesman– I think we proposed your dad, standing in the aisle of a DC-10.  He said essentially, “When you fly to London on the old line airlines, they give you this nice cushy seat. So do we.  They have lovely stewardesses.  So do we.  They give you two nice meals.  So do we.  They get you there in 6 hours.  Us too.  So why do the old line airlines charge you three times more than Laker ?  I don’t know.  Why are you paying it?

CUT TO SUPER:  Laker Airways.  Cross the Atlantic without getting soaked.”

Well, Sir Freddie, unlike the usual poker faced prospects in a pitch was wonderfully effusive.  He loved the campaign.  He was highly complimentary to all of us.  And, in fact, he tried to give us the account right then and there.

It was only the intervention of the prudent head of marketing that prevented a hand being shook on the deal in that room.  Marketing reminded your father that they still had two or three other presentations to see.  Your dad, obviously not one to pull rank, deferred to Marketing’s ministrations.

In the event, other considerations intervened and we did not get the account.  And my recollection is the winner did not mount a campaign as cheeky as ours.

But, I have to tell you, I have had a very fond spot in my heart for your father ever since.  He was so obviously a lovely man.  He had the courage to act on his instincts.  And the great good will to show his true feelings in a business meeting and not worry about hanging onto his negotiating leverage.

Sir Freddie Laker gave a 30-something kid one of the most wonderful moments of a career that has enjoyed some pretty good days.  And he made about the most pleasurable and long-lasting impression upon me of any person I’ve ever met in business.

I’m sure my experience is emblematic of moments enjoyed by many, many other people in their dealings with your father.

I can see why you think about your father every day.  I think about him with regularity myself.  And only met him once.

With best regards, and a salute to your father’s memory,”

Good story Robert. Nice pitch too – I’m sure it would have had a nice mobile or digital component if you had pitched it now – GRIN.

Thanks for making my day!

I stumbled across an incredible story today on the Playstation gamer message boards. A young paralyzed teen had an idea for how to build a rig that would allow him to play video games. The teen worked with Mark Felling who did the physical assembly of the gear and after a couple months they had a kit that allowed the boy to use the vast majority of the controls on a PS3.

In his own words:

“The main reason I put this on the PlayStation website was to show people that even the most limited person can still enjoy console gaming just as much… anyone else. the controller was pretty easy to make except for converting the analog signals into digital signals for when I use the various switches. this took about two months to build and get working effectively. here are a couple more pictures. this time much smaller,lol.I really want the Sony people to see this as well, because many years ago when I was asking about this they had no idea worked to send me.also I can see my television clearly with no instruction whatsoever even though it really works like I would not be able to see anything at all. if anybody knows anybody who could use assistance playing video games please let me know

Also each and every jack has a predetermined function and whichever one I plug into is what’s the switch becomes. so depending on the game I generally use the left analog joystick directions and the right analog joystick using my tongue. currently I can d 20/25 possible functions all by myself. I’m currently using 16 switches plus a joystick with my tongue. saving up money to purchase three switches that are activated by the torching of a muscle. once I have those three switches I will just have to have somebody take care of something like select which is almost never used.”

Ultimately this is about a teen who didn’t let his disabilities hold him back.  He was able to do something that most of the kids his age were doing everyday. I’m sure on some deeply fundamental level that isn’t obvious to all of us this one act allowed him to feel normal for just one moment.

He’s missing a few parts to help complete his rig. I’d love to help him in someway. Does anyone know anyone at Microsoft or Sony that we might be able to pass this story on to and see if we can get him some more gear and games?

I’d love to hear your thoughts on this story, but if nothing else I hope it brightens your day. It made my day.

View The Inspiring Original Thread!

I think I did five flights last week, spent two days on site at GE, completed two massive client presentations and still managed to keep up with my normal load (excluding Take Me To Your Leader).

This weekend burn-out finally caught up with me and I slept for two and a half days. I didn’t leave my house except to go to Best Buy. (One of my latest obsessions is trying to get Windows Media Center to work with my Comcast digital cable.)

All this withstanding I actually enjoyed every second of the pressure. I do get off on this stuff. The big reward was on Friday. I bought a puppy for my girlfriend (which I think was as much a present for me as it was for her). The puppy’s name is Amelie and she’s a 1 pound 10 oz. Pomeranian.

Check out her picture after the jump…

Amelie

Great YouTube Ad

I’ve seen two really first class uses of YouTube as a marketing tool recently and I thought you might enjoy seeing them as well. The first ad is for the new “Wario Land: Shake It” title on the Wii. The video which shows game play and the associated Wii hand motions also slowly starts to shake the entire YouTube page to pieces sending text and content flying. I’ve seen concepts like this before, but by being the first on YouTube it came on as totally unexpected which made it memorable and interesting.

http://www.youtube.com/experiencewii

The second ad for Samsung Instinct telephone. It uses some of the new functionality in YouTube to link between multiple videos. The series of videos are presented in a “Choose Your Own Adventure” style with amusing and racy content that is not only entertaining but demonstrates functionality on the phone successfully. Make sure you watch the video to the end to view the additional functionality.

http://br.youtube.com/watch?v=HoOCiaxIZF4

My congrats to the agencies behind both ads. In fact if you see this blog post and you worked on one of these send me an email. I’d love to take you out for a drink in recognition of your original thinking.

I ended up putting up all the solid aluminum storm shutters on my house and going and shopping for supplies in case we were out of power for a week like we were a couple of years ago. I had even developed a plan to ride the storm out at the Sapient Hollywood office because it’s built like a bomb shelter.

The saddest part was that I had developed this crazy plan that I was going to report the entire storm via twitter including sending photos from out of the windows (as the office has very highly rated impact glass). I thought this was going to be an amazing experience to share with the world and I actually started to look forward to it.

I’m thrilled to say the storm won’t be hitting us and simultaneously embarrassed to say that I think I actually felt a moment where I was disappointed because I couldn’t try out this experiment. If you’re not following me on twitter already please add me at http://twitter.com/djm0ther.