Guest blog post on Gapingvoid.com!!!

The legendary Hugh Mcleod kindly asked me to write a guest post on his blog. To say i was flattered would be the understatement of the year. I was. You can read it here.

THE COGNITIVE SURPLUS

Hugh McLeod makes an excellent point in his latest blog post. He has been on fire of late btw, i’m sure the imminent book launch has to be sharpening him up even more. You have to read it.
He references Clay Shirky’s excellent theory of The Cognitive Surplus. An idea that excited me greatly when i first read about it on hugh’s blog last year i think.

The Cognitive Surplus theory maintains that the past sixty years we all spent gorging ourselves watching TV will be looked back on as anomalous. In the same way that the gin drinking epidemic of pre-Industrial England was. He singles out Wikipedia as a product of this surplus of attention and energy. A surplus that was masked by TV turning the masses into glazed over couch potatoes. Which makes a lot of sense. basically it means that now people aren’t passively glued to the telly anymore 24/7, and they’re all “actively” online instead, where does all this energy go and what can it do?

I shudder when i think back at how much telly i watched growing up. I once, in all seriousness, decided to not study for my yearly college exams and instead watch every single moment of the world snooker championships whose timing clashed with my exams. i decided that watching something on TV was more important than what was arguably the most important event of my life so far. The world snooker championship itself lasted almost a month. And every stroke of the cue was televised live. And I watched every single one! sheer and utter insanity looking back on it. I thought david vine was a member of my family.

Now that TVs chokehold on the attention of the masses has been loosened, all this attention and energy is available to be potentially harnessed by enterprises like Wikipedia. It will be interesting to see how it is used. it is tempting to imagine it will be all used positively and for the greater good, like wikipedia. but you know it will also be used for baser and evil intents too. humanity, you can’t beat it!

the good news was that i happened to have picked the most exciting world snooker championship ever to watch. this was how it all ended. 32 players whittled down to just 2 over three weeks. The final was played over two full days. It was all decided on the very last possible ball at two in the morning. truly one of the great moments in sport. and nobody in advertising ever gave a rat’s ass how i did in my college exams anyway. funny how things worked out.

Hugh McLeod, come on down!

As i recently posted I was given an advance preview copy of Hugh’s first book, IGNORE EVERYBODY. Because I’m special. winking smiley face.

Very little of the book came as a surprise to me but i guess i’m not the real audience. I had read most of it before via his blog and his legendary download HOW TO BE CREATIVE.

i’d hoped hugh would produce a book for the C-suite types and he has. but the difference between hugh’s book and the countless cookie cutter cook book style business books out there is that hugh’s wisdom is hard earned. and he earned it by living it. not by theorizing and bullshitting. and that’s what gives the book its edge. hugh is a true digital pioneer. it’s no coincidence he’s ended up living in west texas.

if you are creative or want to be creative or just need something that will shake you up and challenge your assumptions, buy this book.

My favorite line in the book has to be: WANTING TO CHANGE THE WORLD IS NOT A NOBLE CALLING. IT IS A PRIMAL CALLING.

Turn that one into a poster Hugh. I’d buy it!

It’s here!

My advance galley copy of Hugh McLeod’s first book “Ignore Everybody”. Hugh was kind enough to offer me the chance to preview his soon-to-be-bestseller. I have been waiting for this for a long time. I’ll let you know what i think.

We just got this for our conference room

Fresh from the framing store, it’s one of just 85 signed Hugh McLeod prints from the first in a series of limited edition prints he’s doing. This was always my favorite cartoon of his. I used to have a b/w printout of it on my office wall. It pretty much sums up how I feel generally. And I love the wildly optimistic yet utterly truthful tone. The text reads: THE MARKET FOR SOMETHING TO BELIEVE IN IS INFINITE.

Hugh McLeod is a force of nature. I first came across his website back in 2000 and have read his blog for years now and have gotten to know him fairly well. He has a book coming out this year. And I predict it will be a smash hit. You will buy a copy at the airport one day. I promise you that. Hugh has single-handedly created a culture around his art and his ideas. And it’s about to pay off.

And apparently Hugh is available for interesting poster-making opportunities I found out recently. Contact him if you have an idea you’d like to see brought to life in his truly inimitable style.

Twitter not a huge money maker shock!

Just learned, via twitter ironically (Hugh McLeod specifically),  that twitter isn’t making money.  Neither is Digg or Facebook.  And i think I know why.  Well I’m going to hazard a not too-deeply-researched guess why.  I’m an advertising creative, research is, like, a pain dude.

As long as the Internet (the “i” is capitalized you know) has been around and thriving, the cry of the overfunded startup has been ‘Oh, relax, the money will eventually come from advertising!”.  Really?   And what form will this advertising take?   Google ads or something.   Banner ads!  Yeah.  That’s it.

If only these would-be vendors of advertising had bothered to ask adfolks like us what we thought about the advertising opportunities they proposed to sell to – presumably – adfolks like us.  Because if they did, they might realize that what they’re selling just isn’t that exciting.   Sotto voce text whispers do not an exciting experience make.  And advertising, to be successful, has to get people excited in some manner.  It has to be motivating. It has to be exciting.

I’m not qualified to get into the mathematics of online advertising.  But I really think that the online advertising game has been won.  And Google won it.  If i want to reach (note i say “reach” not “excite”) people i’m giving Google a call.

There will doubtless be great uses of Facebook (whopper sacrifice) and Twitter eventually i’m sure.  But to hear the chatter about these alleged hot advertising properties reminds me of this scenario.

You walk into the foyer of the a grand French hotel.  It looks beautiful.  you’re paying a fortune to stay there.  the manager greets you effusively.  “Welcome to the Hotel Royale!”   He then informs you that you will be sleeping on the window ledge on the fifth floor.   You are understandably underwhelmed. He is perplexed. Is this not the most beautiful hotel in all of France???

Finally, some art for the walls of The Escape Pod

We at the Escape Pod have long been fans of Hugh Mcleod.  Hugh is Scottish.  Hugh is a true artist. Hugh is a great cartoonist.  Hugh is a great marketing thinker.  Hugh is a digital pioneer.   Hugh is arguably the world’s foremost blogger.  Hugh is restless.  Hugh used to live in Chicago.  Then he moved to the Scottish border region.   Then he moved to London.  And now he lives in Alpine Texas.   He is about to, finally, publish a book.   And it will be a big hit.  Because Hugh has put in the hard work over the last decade to amass an audience of devoted fans, myself included.  Hugh is quite simply a breath of fresh air.  He’s a bit of Quixotic figure in a way.  Taking on Microsoft and Dell and helping clue them in on the web hugh.0

It is one of the biggest regrets of our professional lives that a project we hoped to collaborate with Hugh on never came to fruition.   we pride ourselves on  knowing a good thing when we see it and hugh is the real deal.

So were delighted to be able to purchase a signed limited edition print of the above “cartoon” by Hugh today.  It’s one of our favorites of his many cartoons.  A print out of it  used to adorn our office wall in a previous life.  And now it will adorn our office walls once more in a more fitting manner.

Rock on Hugh!