The NBA has canceled the Dunk Contest and is instead moving forward with a NBA/Kia commercial.

I would have loved to have had a warning like that instead of wasting any emotion thinking that there was actually a competition in Saturday night’s nonsense. Here is the punchline:

All of the build-up to see the league’s favorite new star (kind of) jump over the Official Car of the NBA. That stunt has been done to death, and I do mean the product placement as well as the dunk. Here’s a flashback from 2005:

Did you see that Skywalker actually jumped over the car instead of the front bumper of the Official Car of The NBA? The most imaginative competitor of the night, in my opinion, was clearly The Washington Wizards’ Javale McGee:

Oh well, at least the infomercial the NBA conned us into watching was entertaining. Now if you want to see a real dunk competition, here’s a one man dunk competition named Kadour Ziani:

I’m out of words now….

It’s the sport of kings, better than diamond rings – football!

I really love football season. It’s an honest passion, I was raised in Texas and at some point during pre-school all male children are set aside and brainwashed with the need to hold a ball made of pigskin and paint eye-black on their faces. The girls are spared this indoctrination mostly because they have no time for it, given the endless hours of training they receive in aquanet bang-amplification.

Thankfully I’m not the only one who feels this way about football, and at some point in our nation’s history some very wise (obviously holy men) reserved the Sabbath as the day for the NFL to be on display for all to see. Rather than nap on Sundays, I revel in the slobber-knocking sanctity of multi-millionaires playing a boys game. As an advertising pro I’m doubly rewarded because of the ads that are broadcast during this window of awesomeness. “It’s research.”, I tell the family.

As I’ve watched the games this fall, I’ve been struck with how heavily the ads have relied on their soundtrack. As I’ve gone on record before, I’m a sucker for excellent song selection in tv commercials. Shacking up with another passion of mine, mixtapes, the following was born:

Commercially 2010

[download the entire mixtape via .zip file]

1. Evolve [Extended] / Kermit Quinn
2. Home (RAC Mix) / Edward Sharpe & The Magnetic Zeros
3. The Power Is On / The Go! Team
4. There Goes My Love / The Blue Van
5. Light of the Morning / Band of Skulls
6. Howlin’ For You / The Black Keys
7. Short Skirt/Long Jacket / Cake
8. Check Yo Self / Ice Cube
9. Come Home / Chappo
10. Say Hey (I Love You) [feat. Cherine Anderson] / Michael Franti & Spearhead
11. Paradise Circus (Gui Boratto Remix) / Massive Attack
12. Creep / Vega Choir

Just for kicks, see if you can identify the commercial that goes with each song.

I’m out of words now…

At the house where the dude abides, we are in the heat of the mow-ment. Yesterday’s bush-whacking welcomed me with 100+ degrees of love and affection.

As I’ve said before, I learn a lot from lawn care. It’s definitely not the pacing back and forth that molds my mind, it is the company that I keep on this journey to and fro. Summer school is back in session for the dude. …

More to the point, the first semester of Briggs and Stratton University’s summer term has wrapped. The recently completed course work focused on my current major: Commercial Persuasion. There were 21 hours of lecture in all, and for the most part, that time flew by.

The first eight hours were dedicated to Chris Anderson’s “The Long Tail: Why the Future of Business is Selling Less of More.” I’ll admit, that I’m about two years late to the Long Tail party, but I’m glad that I finally journeyed down this trail blazed by Wired’s Anderson. Much like Freakonomics and Blink, The Long Tail is a book that is not easily categorized. It could easily find itself at home in the Cultural Anthropology or Business/Marketing section of your local Barnes and Noble.

There are many things that I could say about this book, but this is what resonated with me the most: This book provides a lens that allows the reader to see markets and societies as complex inter-woven independent tribes that are brought together by common interests and values. These tribes are born out of “and” not “or”, meaning there are significant amounts of overlap among these indie, affinity-based groups. I think “mainstream” is becoming no more. I highly recommend The Long Tail.

The next five hours of enlightenment were guided by Seth Godin and his “Meatball Sundae.” Seth was the first author with whom I identified when I became a marketer. Here’s why: Seth is smart, and he thinks that people are smart, too. He’s against black hat marketing (lying about bad products so that suckers will be duped into buying junk) and he serves as a great advocate for authentic storytelling.

Meatball Sundae is an excellent primer on the “new” marketing. Very early on in this book Seth clarifies life Before, During and After advertising. To be clear, we now live in a time After Advertising. To read free samples of this book, follow this link.

The final eight hours of lecture were delivered by Charlene Li and Josh Bernoff via “Groundswell: Winning in a World Transformed by Social Technologies.” Admittedly, ownership of this book puts me in a very small circle of friends… a circle with a lot of pocket-protectors and red, Swingline staplers.

Over the last three months, I have given away more than a dozen copies of Groundswell. Way more. For me, this book is like cheating. Case studies, practical applications and road-tested theories are the backbone of this book. There is jargon, and considering that the book was published by Harvard Business School Press, it can leave some folks behind, but for the most part this book will open the eyes of business leaders to the opportunities that are bouncing all over the internets.

Following an hour long tour of Audible’s library, I have chosen the next 18 hours of lecture for my second semester: “Snoop: What Your Stuff Says About You” by Sam Gosling and “Buying In: The Secret Dialogue Between What We Buy and Who We Are” by Rob Walker. Both of these books are fresh releases, May and June 2008 respectively, and after a few more miles across my yard, hopefully I’ll be able to share some of their insights.

Finally… I’m out of words now…

While baking through a little lawnwork today… and when i say little, i mean four hours in 100 degree heat… I realized that mowing my yard has advanced my career in a huge way. It’s not the immediate satisfaction of seeing instant progress, it’s the time with my iPod.

I’ve always listened to something while mowing, when I was 14 it was Joshua Tree, 17 the Mighty Lemon Drops. Then there was a blessed seven-year hiatus from yardwork until i owned my own house in 1997, and from then until just a couple of years ago, sports talk-radio was my overheated companion. I guess I need something to help me pass the time.  …

Now it’s audiobooks. Apple has made a lot of life easier for me, and learning, may just be the best. Here is a sampling of some of the books that have altered my mind recently:

The World is Flat
All Marketers Are Liars
Re-Imagine Business
Small Is The New Big
The Big Moo
Blink
The Tipping Point
Freakonomics

Today, I began my second tour through Freakonomics, and I have to say, It’s one of the most fascinating reads (listens) I’ve ever had. If you have any interest in sociology, or why people do what they do, then this is a must be read. Mind-altering is truly an appropriate description.

Taking the time to engage these books has helped this proud owner of a B.A. in History to navigate the business world just a bit better. And, become a little more knowledgeable about things other than the benefits of the 3-4 defense.

I’m out of words now.

As an Interactive Producer, it is my job to help people communicate. The message may be deep / brief / large-audience / silly / etc. You get the idea… the message could be anything, the challenge is shaping it to be received well by the intended audience. And if the message is delivered well, then hopefully a conversation will ensue as the audience responds, and ideas / loyalty / relationships are shared.

You know what, it’s a great gig. If you are a friend of mine, you could attest to the fact that I can be a bit chatty. I’m not ashamed, I like stories and odds are that on any given day I may share 37 of them, give or take twenty.

This week, two terrific articles on communicating well via the web have been passed on to me, and true to form, I’m blabbing about them here. …

I’ll begin with the article that Duke, a brilliant Experience Architect (he told me not to call him an Information Architect anymore), sent me this afternoon. The article is about amazing ways to visualize data. He is an expert in this field, and if it moved Duke enough to pass it on to me, I thought it would be worth my time to read it.

Data visualization may seem like an obscure Advanced Physics pre-req, but actually it’s a part of your everyday life. Highway signs, magazine articles, convenience store shelves, they are all examples of how information is put together to so that the user can make quick, informed decisions. Check out the link. You’ll dig it, and if you don’t, then feel free to call me a Nerd for thinking so.

The second article that I want to pass along was shared by The Short Fat Kid. The article is about words. Beautiful, meaningful words. Some time back the idea was adopted that the words used on the web should be quick and dirty… Not that kind of dirty.

Momentum was built around this line of thought for two reasons. First, speed was king. No malice was intended. It was believed to serve the reader best to be brief, and be done. Second, and this is just a shame, is because the words on the web were not crafted by gifted writers, rather they were assembled by programmers or whoever else in the office had time to help out.

Read the article. You’ll be encouraged that there are people out there that believe that you are intelligent, and that you can be moved by beauty.

I’m out of words now.

For Creatives, it is mandated that we communicate creatively. It’s not a requirement written in a job description, it’s a need that lives in the soul. Sometimes the concept is too creative, and that’s cool, because if all ideas are accepted, then the work is acceptable. We don’t want to be acceptable. We want to be remarkable.

Ramble, ramble, ramble, I think that I am using up all of my words, here. What I am getting to is this: Whenever a creative sells a concept to a client or AE we go through a rationale, pre-sell, explanation about why the concept is the best one in the world and why no other creative concept could possibly be as excellent as the one that – through hours and hours of “online research”, Project Runway/UFC channel-surfing, Cap’n Crunch-eating, mental olympics caused by fear of derivation, next best-thinging and sometimes costume wearing – we have just given birth too! Hallelujah… Holy Sh@%… Where’s The Tylenol.!?!?

But, like I said, sometimes we can be too creative. For the folks who have a hard time understanding how a creative piece is going to sell their product, Diablog Cafe has created the Account Man Pop-Up to give the audience the unbelievably obvious translation that they may need. It’s brilliant. Enjoy.

I’m out of words now.

“Really? That’s the title of your first post?”

Sarabeth is curious. She wants to know if all of my posts will have a movie title embedded in the post title in some form or fashion.

Well… no… maybe… I don’t know… It might be a cool little caveat to add, but you know, one day I’m going to run out of relevant titles to use, and then I’m going to be toast, and I’ll have an awesome post about something really great, and all I’ll have to use for the title will be … Pootie Tang.

(by the way, I pledge right now to not use “…” anymore today)

The Volcano that opposes me is the battle of leadership. It’s hard. Really hard. And, it is the profession that I have chosen. For the last several years I have been a Creative. It’s a wonderful gig, and I highly endorse the calling, but a year ago, I opted for the challenge of leading Creatives. I made the move for a thousand reasons, but what has risen to be the major purpose for such a shift is that as a Creative, I learned a bit about how Creatives should be led – how I have enjoyed being led.

Remember that EDS superbowl commercial from about a decade ago?

That is how it feels at times. Lead the person, yet give them the freedom that they deserve so that they can mine the gold which only they can find. They are all brilliant, and hard workers, but never the less, I represent the man, and when things get tight, I have to be the @#$ that rides them to produce.

I’m out of words now.