Richmond, CA

When you’re in high school, all everyone wants is to fit in. But how far would you go to fit in?

For me, this played a part in what happened that terrible night in Richmond, California. A vulnerable, churchgoing 15-year-old girl tries to fit in and please her school’s bad boys. Her desire to fit in and be accepted made her unwilling to pay attention to her surroundings. She was too innocent and too trusting. Aren’t most 15-year-olds?

It has been almost two weeks since I first heard the news about the horrific gang rape that took places at a high school in Richmond, California. I am still traumatized by this, because I can’t believe:

a) this happened at a high school in America

b) up to 20 people watched, laughed and took pictures with their camera phones

c) that up to 10 people raped her for over 2 hours

As I learn more about the event, it’s sad that she was actually heading home and was calling for a ride when a friend did something that changed her life forever. He got her drunk off brandy. One man asked for sex. She said no, punched him in the nuts. He flipped out and punched her. Then they formed a train and raped her. Over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over again. Sometimes with foreign objects.  And when they were down, the rapists and the crowd left her naked next to a dumpster.

Listen to the 9-1-1 call from a brave girl.

So far 4 have been arraigned.

Donations for the Richmond High School rape victim may be sent to: Richmond High Jane Doe, account No. 041-30-1188, Mechanics Bank, 3170 Hilltop Mall Road, Richmond, CA 94806.

Or send cards to Jane Doe, care of Richmond High School, 1250 23rd St., Richmond, CA 94804-1011 checks out to the Richmond High Student Fund, with “For sex assault victim” written in the memo line.

The victim has a long road ahead of her, but she sounds like a strong person who is still optimistic and believes this world can be a good place.

The victim recently wrote a statement, which her pastor read out loud. “…violence is always the wrong choice…We realize people are angry about this. But let the anger cause change, change that is necessary to keep our children, our neighbors and our friends safe.”

15 free online tools for web designers and digital art directors

 

 

To see all 15 free online tools for web designers and digital art directors, click here to go to the web page. I love that so many people are sharing these free resources.

Free Portfolio Site for Web Designers, Copywriters, Art Directors, Photographers and Creative Types

I posted a short article on free portfolio sites earlier this year and would like to continue to post ideas to help out. Lots of people are getting laid off. Lots of people are on unemployment and money is tight. So if you’re looking for a free portfolio website, consider WordPress.

WordPress is a great content management system (CMS) so for those people who don’t know code, you can easily make the changes yourself.

Plus, several designers are offering free portfolio-theme templates so you can easily showcase your work. Although if you want to kick it old school and don’t know code or use one of the templates that has taken care of the code and everything else, you can just upload jpegs up your work into any WordPress template–not just the free portfolio themes.

Please note that when you use a free portfolio theme, you must give the creator of the theme because of the creative commons license.

1. PORTFOLIO. So far, it seems like the best free WordPress portfolio theme available. It organizes the work and has an area for you to write the client, URL, and a little description. Download it here.

Here’s some examples of people who used the template above:

http://www.rockfordfx.com/

http://sfunique.com/

2. KEEPITSIMPLE. It offers nice a nice image gallery to show off your work. Download it here.

3. IMPRESS. It offers nice scrollable thumbnails to showcase your work front and center. Click here and then click on the direct download link.

4. CP CODA. It’s geared toward web designers. It works in every major browser. Download it here.

5. WPESP. Great for designers since it can be modified to your needs. Comes with a tutorial so you can see how to adapt the Coda Slider Effect script. Download it here.

Here’s a link to my earlier posting about free portfolio websites.

*** I would like to give a special shout out to Knowtebook for providing me with the research for this.

Interactive unemployment graph for all 50 states.

http://bit.ly/1mYeK

Why Twitter is changing the world.

Some considered Twitter a fad earlier this year. Today, it is a force to be reckoned with.

Twitter’s estimate worth is $1 billion. In February 2008, Twitter was hovering around 475,000 users. eMarketer did research earlier this year and estimated there would be 18 million users by the end of 2009. They were way off! By the end of August 2009, there were 27 million users. And there are no signs it is slowing down any time soon. With Google and Bing adding Tweets to the search results, it means Twitter is here to stay.

How will Twitter deal with the mass number of tweets and maintain Twitter so it’s accessible? At any given time so many people are tweeting, it’s common to see this image when you are trying to tweet.

Twitter is over capacity

And as of today, October 20, 2009, Twitter surpassed 5 billion tweets.

So what are people tweeting about? Someone are talking about themselves. This group of “Meformers” makes up roughly 80% of Twitter users according to a study done by Rutgers University. Meformers generally post updates their everyday lives, feelings, and thoughts. The remaining 20% of users are known as “Informers” and they like sharing information and usually include links to their sources.

The Rutgers research determined 9 different types of tweets:

1. information sharing (i.e. 5 WordPress plug-ins to try out + URL)
2. self promotion (i.e. Check out Arnold DC’s latest work +URL)
3. opinions and complaints (i.e. I love Amtrak!!) Best person to follow on Twitter for this is @shitmydadsays
4. statements and random thoughts (i.e. Ever wonder why dogs like cat food so much?)
5. me now (i.e. Enjoying a margarita after a long day)
6. question to followers (i.e. When is the economy going to turn around?)
7. presence maintenance (i.e. Good Morning everyone. Miss me?)
8. self-referential anecdotes (i.e. “My kid poured spaghetti sauce all over me. Twice!”)
9. anecdotes about others (i.e. “Can’t believe @username woke up early to jog. It was 40 degrees!”)

So why are so many people joining Twitter?

Personally, I think when Ashton Kutcher (@aplusk) battled CNN to become the first one on Twitter to have 1 million followers, it got people wondering what Twitter was all about. The battle was all over the news. Ultimately, Ashton smoked CNN. After the challenge, you can see a huge surge in the number of people joining.

Ashton’s stunt isn’t the only thing that has made people join. Others have joined because of the impact Twitter is starting to have on our lives. For example:

1. Twitter helped people understand what was happening in Tehran and Iran after they had their recent election. Twitter became the way how Iranians communicated with the rest of the world.
2. Twitter is creating news. It’s the pulse of what’s on people’s minds. And it’s often told later on the evening news. Every second, the trending topics show you what the most popular topics are.
3. It’s one of the first places people and companies break news.
4. Shaq and other players were tweeting from the bench–until the NBA banned tweeting from the bench.
5. Share experiences in real-time with the world. Tweet while you’re at a concert or out shopping. Give minute-by-minute play. When President Obama came to Manassas, Virginia the night before the election, he was supposed to speak at Nissan Pavilion. But he was late. He tweeted the whole way there (i.e. at Dulles airport, stuck in traffic on I-66). I remember the newscasters relying on his tweets to know his whereabouts.
6. Hate waiting on hold? Many companies are using their Twitter accounts for customer service. Speak with a person and get answers or directed to someone who will help. Home Depot and Geek Squad are two examples.
7. See things you would never have seen before. Astronaut Mike Massimino (@Astro_Mike) actually tweeted pics from space on the shuttle. Lance Armstrong tweeted pics from the hospital when his baby was born earlier this year.
8. Twitter is helping brands connect with consumers on a whole new level. As an example, there have already been 3 million tweets about the Ford Fiesta. And in April, Ford CEO Alan Mulally answered questions on Twitter. One consumer was undecided after doing a second test drive. Mulally personally called him and won the consumer over.

Twitter Homepage

If you’re not on Twitter yet and want to, but don’t understand how it works. Here’s a few tips to get you started.

YOU WANT TO: Acknowledge someone, publicly talk to someone
HOW: Put a @ before their user ID
EXAMPLE: @quinonesanibal Really nice follow up to milliondollarhomepage.com http://bit.ly/1R4bnT

YOU WANT TO: Retweet something cool that someone wrote
HOW: Put a RT before you paste their message.
EXAMPLES: RT @leeclowsbeard Dear jr. (or sr.) team: Before whining about not getting good work produced, try showing some first.
Really nice video. RT @Vejvoda: Did You Know 4.0 – Fascinating, The Economist does it again. http://bit.ly/2LAr7F

YOU WANT TO: PUT A HASHTAG (aka tag your tweet)
HOW: Put a # before the hashtag you would like to use
EXAMPLES: “The purpose of a business is to create a customer who creates customers for you. ” -Peter Drucker #ims09
Bring Tracy Morgan to Twitter. http://twacy.org “Tell her that you want her privates and your privates to do a high five.” -TM #twacy

YOU WANT TO: POST A URL, BUT IT’S FREAKIN’ LONG. HOW: Paste the URL in BIT.LY first. This site shrinks your URL from 50 characters to around 7.

YOU WANT TO: WRITE SOMETHING, BUT IT’S TOO LONG
HOW: Don’t be afraid of using “&” for “and” or “2” for “to” or leaving off punctuation.
Example: It’s nice outside. I ran 2 the Lincoln Memorial, Washington Monument & the Mall this AM. Check out this crazy bird. http://twitpic.com/56748

***Some facts for this article were researched from mashable.com. Follow Mashable on Twitter for great social media news.

This Creative Revolution Will Not Be Televised.

I remember learning about the creative revolution when I was at Brandcenter. I always wondered what it must have been like to have lived through it. And lately, I find myself thinking about people  like Bill Bernbach, Phyllis Robinson and all the other ad legends who helped shape the creative revolution. Were they nervous about the unknown? Excited about the possibilities? Frustrated with people who were in denial of the change that was happening?

Now that we’re in a creative revolution, I feel what they probably felt. And that is a little of everything, but mostly pure exhilaration. Being in the beginning of a creative revolution and working in advertising is pretty amazing these days.  From mobile apps, augmented reality, social media and the amazing breakthroughs in technology, the world and the way information is delivered  is changing every day. And the possibilities, well, we’re just scratching the surface.

As the world evolves with the exploding development of social technology, a few things have become clear to me:

1. Evolve or die. Any agency who refuses to do this will perish. It is not the 80’s. It is 2009. And a print campaign cannot solve everything anymore. Audiences are segmented and you must be willing to consider mediums and platforms that you are not familiar with and be okay with it. Open your mind and be creative.

2. Fuck so-called experts. We’re in a creative revolution and we’re all learning. Claiming to be an expert means you’re closing your mind to more possibilities and you believe you’ve achieved the highest level of understanding. You may know a lot. But no one in the revolution is an expert; we’re all students.

3. Everyone has a voice. Your customers. Your employees. Your family. Nowadays if you piss anyone off, your brand or agency or name is fair game. It can and probably will get slaughtered publicly on forums, comment posts on blogs and social networks. Don’t assume it’s like the good old days when people just talked shit behind your back. Today, people talk shit about other people publicly to the entire world wide web. Which reminds me, it’s probably good to have a crisis management plan for when the shit hits the fan.

4. Promote collaboration. We live in a time when it’s no longer cool to be a one-man show. Ideas require collaboration to bring them to life. From developers, QA, information architects, art directors, copywriters, producers, designers, illustrators… there are a shit load of people who must work together and often, in different offices or remotely. Do yourself a favor, promote collaboration and strong teamwork. Don’t be a tool and treat developers like monkey or nobody’s. Same goes for anyone on your team. You want respect? You gotta dish it to receive it. And if you don’t believe me, just know that these other members of your team who you take for granted hate your fucking arrogant guts.

5. Love the process. Mark Fenske used to say this. And it’s true more than ever. Today, the process creates headaches, fights, computer related eye strain, carpel tunnel syndrome, beta testing, wire frames, etc. It can be complicated and frustrating. But that’s because every project is a learning curve.  So you gotta love the process in order to get the idea to not only come to life, but blow users’ minds.

Spoken word about creating and keeping knowledge

Really amazing.

Holy Shit!

Alice In Wonderland

This will seriously make you trip out of your freaking mind. Check out this Alice In Wonderland musical masterpiece.

Meet the Fuccons, the inspiration for Old Navy’s mannequin campaign

The Fuccons are a fake ass American family living in Japan. The Fuccons are really creepy, because they’re American-looking mannequins. They look like a nice family. But they’re far from it. They have a potty mouth. The children hit their parents. And the parents are rude as hell to each other. Is this Japan’s perception of modern American families?

Designer Paul Rand

“Don’t try to be original. Just try to be good.” -Paul Rand

President Obama and Alexa Chung sing about health care reform

For most Americans, health care reform is confusing as hell. Maybe watching President Obama and Alexa Chung sing and dance about this important issue will help you make sense of it.

Chris Rock’s “Good Hair”

Chris Rock tries to understand what good hair is.

One day, Chris Rock’s daughter asks him, “how come I don’t have good hair?” So Chris Rock sets out to find out what the good hair hype is all about. This comedy explores the $9 billion African-American hair business, its products including creamy crack, weaves and extensions, and relaxers–to better understand the quest for good hair