Popularity: 2% [?]
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Thanks to LAist for turning me on to this little gem. Filmmaker Ryan Killackey and his wife spent more than a year capturing 10,000 images of California to create this quintessential story of life in the Golden State, told in less than three minutes. Who says great storytelling is easy?
The tilt-shift photography—in which life-size settings and subjects are rendered as miniature-style models through camera manipulation—breathes new life into some overly familiar California imagery. (You can check out some other amazing tilt-shift still examples here.)
Personal favorites among the images in this short film include a Griffith Observatory swarming with ant-like tourists, and the fireworks show at Disneyland with Tinkerbell flitting in and out like a mosquito. The closing image is simple and sublime. And the music is perfect.
Popularity: 10% [?]
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I’m going to explore this issue a bit more fully in future posts, but I wanted to share this very sharp explanation in a music-video-nutshell of why your brand IS your business. And if you think by “business” I don’t mean nonprofits, think again. How stakeholders experience you—through your communication efforts, fund raising, interactions with staff and volunteers, special events, programs and service delivery, etc.—absolutely defines your brand in their minds. More on this very soon.
Popularity: 16% [?]
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photo by bgottsab
For those of you who had given me up for dead, Happy New Year! Yes, it’s been two months since my last post, but I have a note from my employer saying it’s an approved absence.
Seriously, what I’ve found is that when you get REALLY busy at work it tends to eat into your evenings, weekends, holidays and other assorted time off … you know, the time you typically devote to neglecting your family while running furiously in the social media gerbil wheel.
I am as sincere as I can be when I say that this is an incredibly exciting time to be doing marketing and communications at Southern California Presbyterian Homes. We’re in the process of redefining our brand in a way that extends far beyond name changes and new logos and all the typical elements of a visual identity rebranding. This is a deep dive into what it means to be a customer-centric organization focused on facilitating the kind of experience we believe all seniors should be enjoying as they explore who and what they want to be at this stage of their lives.
We’re still shy of our formal external launch, so I can’t really get into the details at this point. I’ll just say that I expect that what we’ll be doing around communications and brand management over the next few years will be the most interesting (and challenging) work of my career.
Enough about me. Here’s where it gets good for you—well, two of you—out there. We are again doubling the communications and brand development department at SCPH with the addition of two new positions. Both are critical to the success of our branding efforts, and both are jobs that, given the right experience and skills set, I’d be drooling over if I were in the market. They are:
Senior Writer
Our new senior writer will take the lead on content development to feed the content marketing/social media beast we are about to unleash. I’m looking for an experienced storyteller who can help us communicate what a life well-lived looks like for those in their 70s and beyond. The stereotype of seniors sitting in their wheelchairs in the halls of nursing homes, waiting for the end, has never been the reality of our communities (and in fact is not the reality for most senior living communities).
This position will develop content for a variety of new communication channels and really help us shape the voice of the organization. If you visit our current corporate website or any of our community sites, rest assured that none are representative of the direction we’ll be headed with your help.
This is not a job for a newcomer. I’m looking for someone who has mastered a variety of writing approaches—for the web, print periodicals, direct mail, fund-raising programs, etc.—but the highest priority is that you can tell a great story.
Web Manager
SCPH is finally ready to make the move to a more current online posture, but we need a seasoned web manager to get us there. Again, this is an opportunity to both execute on what’s in the works and help us shape our digital initiatives moving forward.
The successful candidate for this position will be responsible for the overall direction, organization and management of a family of websites as well as our corporate intranet. I’m looking for someone with three to five years of web development/webmaster experience, with significant experience with common content management systems and developing dynamic, content-rich sites.
Both of these positions are available immediately. You can learn more about (and apply for) the senior writer position here and the website manager here.
Popularity: 15% [?]
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It may seem in today’s tilt-a-whirl environment that great ideas arrive fast and furious, coming out of nowhere and fully formed. But that isn’t the case, according to Steven Johnson, author of Where Good Ideas Come From: The Natural History of Innovation. Technology may provide the connective tissue that speeds up innovation, but that next big idea will probably come out of slow hunches, accidental innovation and collaboration rather than any “Eureka!” moment.
(Thanks to Katya Andresen for turning me on to this great video synopsis of Johnson’s thinking on the subject. Gotta love well-done explanatory visual communication.)
Popularity: 15% [?]
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- Image via Wikipedia
One of my favorite post-election analyses comes from former Reagan speechwriter/current Wall Street Journal columnist Peggy Noonan, who in her Saturday column called for a return to a political tradition of candidates having a certain, oh, I don’t know, a certain depth of experience and character. That isn’t to say I have to agree with their politics. But some level of maturity and life experience would be nice.
Sarah Palin, an exemplar of the other kind of politician increasingly common in today’s sorry landscape, once again showed her inch-deep grasp of American politics and history in invoking Ronald Reagan as an example of how a limited resume can still lead to great things. She characterized the former president as that actor who appeared in “Bedtime for Bonzo, Bozo, something?”
Noonan was quick to characterize Palin as a nincompoop and educate her on Reagan’s bona fides beyond acting, as president of the Screen Actors Guild for seven terms and as a two-term governor of California. In other words, he had established himself as a leader—not simply a celebrity—prior to running for president.
Don’t get me wrong. I’m no fan of Reagan or his politics. My own political perspective leans more toward a pox on both your parties. But whether you’re a Republican or a Democrat, I hope most of us can get behind the sentiment Noonan expressed:
You have to earn your way into politics. You should go have a life, build a string of accomplishments, then enter public service. And you need actual talent: You have to be able to bring people in and along. You can’t just bully them, you can’t just assert and taunt, you have to be able to persuade.
Noonan’s assertion, which I hope to God is true, is that Americans don’t want as their elected representatives “people who seem empty or crazy.” For example, those tea party candidates who weren’t successful last week. Or a certain former vice presidential candidate.
What’s the takeaway for nonprofits? Yes, our messages are important. But so are the credibility and accomplishments of the messenger. They really do go hand in hand.
Popularity: 10% [?]
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2010 Getting Attention Nonprofit Tagline Awards from GettingAttention.org on Vimeo.
Time again for Getting Attention’s annual nonprofit tagline awards. Check out the video for some great reasons why nonprofits should invest the time and creativity to developing a tagline and to see this year’s winners. This year a record 1,700 nonprofits entered 2,700 taglines in the competition.
Popularity: 24% [?]
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Check out this new video from Network for Good. It’s a play on Microsoft’s Advertiser vs. Consumer video that came out several years ago. It’s a funny, pointed commentary on the state of donor/nonprofit relations that’s all too true for many organizations.
Popularity: 13% [?]
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Thanks to Lauren Kirchner at the Columbia Journalism Review for her piece on David McCandless’ recent TED talk on data visualization. McCandless makes an excellent case for the idea that good design is the best way to navigate the incredible information glut we’ve unleashed through advances in technology.
Popularity: 12% [?]
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- Image via Wikipedia
Last week my organization’s home office celebrated (or maybe lamented) the end of summer with a little field trip to a Dodgers game. I’m no baseball fan, but what the hell … Dodger dogs, peanuts, Gordon Biersch garlic fries … what’s not to like? The weather was beautiful, we had great seats on the first-base side of the shady loge level, and the game played absolutely no role in determining anything since L.A. imploded some time ago, which meant people could enjoy one another’s company and pretty much ignore what was happening on the field. Good game. (Oh yeah, and the Dodgers lost to the Phillies. Big surprise.)
One of the little incentives the Dodgers organization offers as part of a group ticket sale like this, in addition to 15 bucks in Dodger dollars (which will buy you a dog, a drink and, if you’re lucky, one more snack of your choice), is a T-shirt. Given my determined lack of interest in baseball, it wasn’t something I’d stand in line for even when free, but a coworker offered to pick up my shirt and give me hers as well since she knows I have two young girls who love getting stuff. And who would fight like rabid wolverines if I brought home just one shirt. (Thanks again, Paula.)
I figured a nice little T-shirt with the Dodgers logo would get me in my girls’ good graces for at least 10 minutes. And here is where our little story takes a dreary, crappy marketing turn.
You are aware, of course, that Dodgers sometimestar Manny Ramirez and his hair have left L.A. for Chicago. And I’m sure you can imagine the warehouses of Mannyware the Dodgers marketing office must be sitting on: promotional shirts, bobbleheads and other geegaws that now have less than no value. At this point no one in Southern California (I hope) wants to be seen as a walking billboard for this guy.
You see where I’m going with this, right?
So Paula returns to the stands, shirts in hand. I unfurl one of them and read what’s emblazoned across the front.
“I Sat in Mannywood”
When I gave one to my oldest, she looked at me and said, “Uh … thanks, Dad” like I’d just handed her a dead fish. Which I guess I had.
If I were a member of the Dodgers’ marketing organization, I think I might have asked myself if dumping our most outdated and worthless merchandise on our customers—shirts that even baseball know-nothings like me know are outdated and worthless—was a good idea. I may have been mildly disinterested in the Dodgers before, but I probably would have taken my girls to a game or two. Now I’m thinking we’ll drive down to Anaheim and check out the Angels if the mood ever strikes.
Good job, guys. That’s really swinging for the fences. Next time you’re printing up shirts, here’s a suggestion for one you Dodger marketeers can wear around the clubhouse: “I Sat in Mannyshit.”
If you’re going to give away free stuff, don’t insult your customers. Some of them may not like it.
Popularity: 14% [?]
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