The death of Pop and the rise of hasty news

We received sad news about Michael Jackson passing away at Chilis Happy hour, right around 3PM. One of my co-workers was checking Facebook on his iPhone and saw some comments on Michael RIP. Although these were terrible news I couldn't help but to be absolutely amazed by the promptness in which we had received the news over frozen margaritas.

I was also commenting how I would love to see one of those cool Wired charts on the exponential growth of the speed of news spreading.

The chart could take the form of a timeline and show:
- Average time passed before learning about death of Marco Polo
- Average time passed before learning about death of Leonardo Da Vinci
- Average time passed before learning about death of John Adams
- Average time passed before learning about death of J.F Kennedy
- Average time passed before learning about death of Kurt Cobain
- Average time passed before learning about death of Lady Diana
- Average time passed before learning about death of Michael Jackson
... and so on, with indications of technological advancements: telegraph, radio, tv, web and finally the mobile web.

This again relates to the topic of our dependency on technology and how invasive it has become in our lives.

I was also surprised to read an article this morning about fake news of celebrity deaths—aka "death pranks"— which shows a real problem with the reliability of our new source. Quite concerning.





Please, another one of those cool charts to show the curve of news reliability go down as technology explodes and filters disappear.

catching up with Seth + Adrian Tomine- And a lesson for designers

Last week I attended a public speech and book signing with graphic artists Seth and Adrian Tomine. I must say it was a pleasure and thank the Booksmith on Haight.

Seth talked about his early years, how he started by drawing Super-Hero characters but how eventually grew out of it, he also talked about his struggle during art school and early career. His passion for his profession is admirable. He talked about the loneliness of the cartoonist which is something that really resonated with me.

Adrian Tomine was often self-deprecating and absolutely mortified with his early work "Optic Nerve" which brought him early fame and was about to be republished despite his efforts to bury it in the past forever. In the end (and due largely to his publisher's insistence) the series will stay out for the public's enjoyment. The compromise was to make the format more suitable for the zines and at the same time more bearable for the artist. Instead of being book-bound, the zines will be collected in a simple kraft box. A medium that Adrian finds much more suited for the xeroxed stapled small zines.

We all have past work that we wish to bury deep down in the past. Adrian Tomine (and for that matter any other creative public figure) is an example on how to live with our past. By choosing a more original and organic format—and with a little bit of humor—Tomine puts his shame into humble perspective, and places things in context: a 16 year old young man learning to draw.

the future is marketing to marketers

marketers as

a) consumers

With empowered consumers, or like trendwatching calls them in their briefing SELLSUMERS, the future smiles to those who can help consumers become marketers.

The web is a platform, a means to an end, and applications that help people create, showcase, share and finally sell their own products and stories are springing. See Threadless—Blurb—Lovely Charts—Springspotters-the Doritos Superbowl Ad contest, etc.


b) traditional communications professionals

On a slightly different note, in this age of participation there is a very heavy involvement of advertising, marketing and communications professionals in the conversation. Their voices are already heavily represented on sites like blogger-slideshare and twitter, social media has an amplifying effect for them. Whether this is fair or not for the true-consumer it's undeniable that it represents more opportunity. And so business like the Chartbeat-Veer-iStock- creative circle and so continue to succeed.