Ordinary Inspiration

I met a very special taxi driver today who takes pride in his work. He invented a game, and plastered advertisements around his taxi saying, "Play a game and win a free ride. Ask Host for more information.'

He really enjoys what he does. Whether he does or not, I'm not sure. At least I know he takes pride in it. It entertains him, it entertains his passengers, and this is only but one of his ideas. He has another, a mini spray filled with water to freshen his eyes with.

The question was. Guess what type of passenger? One who tips, one who doesn't, and one who asks for a discount. Malay, Japanese and Chinese women respectively.

It was an interesting ride. His enthusiastic rubs off, and its inspiring to witness. I can bring these bits of ordinary inspiration into my blog and write about the ordinary person who takes pride in their job, what they do, and what keeps them going.

What's your catch?

Idea for a magazine feature.

What's the catch?

We have faced enough grouches and easily knows what can get them down. Simply waking up on the wrong side of bed is enough reason for them to hurl abuses at the whole world. Yet there are those annoyingly pesky, always seemingly happy positive fanatics who wear a smile on their face and never seem beaten no matter the odds. These are stereotypes, no one falls strictly in either. More like a hybrid of both, and that is what we all are.

Apart from our loved ones that keeps us going and striving. Where do we take inspiration from? What's that one thing that we have seen, read, heard or felt that has kept us going?

People take inspiration from all places. Inspiration comes from all places. Quotes. Song. Movies. Poems. Drama. Books. Bands. Heros. Singers. Actors. Tonnes. What is that one thing that they live by?

We all need inspiration. It's not only for the creative, the designer, or the artists. We ordinary folks also need inspiration. Where do we find it? What keeps us inspired?

I've tonnes of ideas, and one day one of them might take flight. I'm lazy too, one day if I need an idea, this might come in handy.

Social Experiment

They say the Internet is revolutionising the way people work. I believe this to be true. But how can I contribute and earn my keep from this growing world of digital neo-nomads? I am surfing Craigslist now to look for jobs. From there, there is CornerPin, iWriteIt.com, an quite a host of other random stuff.

Both sides of a coin

Herein lies the fascination:

"As a namer, I was struck by the fact that journalism and brand strategy are really two sides of the same coin. They both involve observing culture: one generally comments on the culture; the other tries to take the observations and captialise on them. For commercial language applications, the namer's job is to study a culture so that a client can leverage new knowledge. In this way, namers are reverse-linguists, and coporate storytellers are reverse anthropologists. Both have a hand in creating new words that are often synthetic forms that try to find a voice in the cultural din."

About corporate mission and vision statements:

"If you are trying to inspire people, if you are trying to create something that's going to propagate on its own, you had better think about the emotional impact of what your are talking about, as opposed to just getting the facts out there."

This is the missing link in those statements and corporate HR programmes, orientation programmes, their role is to inspire their staff. To make them feel good about the company that they are working for and steer them onto a common goal. A meaningful contribution.

What's wrong with the box anyway?

Ramblings after reading Wordcraft

It's under-rated. Unlike books that tout themselves as THE BOOK to read for marketers, brand managers, THE BOOK for advertising, THE BOOK for those in the creative industries. The messages put across in this book beats all the rest without a need to market. Like Mavericks' brand of cows. Beautiful.

I can't help but to repeat this again. It's an under-rated masterpiece. Beautifully written, one section links coherently to the next, to build the industry up. It doesn't strive to explain how things come about like Malcolm Gladwell -- and end up getting caught up in the 'no conclusion' closing, which is what I love about this book.

It is about branding beyond the mere abstraction of words. I like how the authour of Food Rules puts it. There is no need to over-tout if something is good. It will sell itself. An analogy to highly-functional food and beverages touted by mega-conglomerates.

I used to think what's the big deal about names, mission and vision statements - it's inane how companies are willing to pay so much, to invest so much for a name that even I think I can come up with. The book gives credit to the industry.

Once you get the foundation right, the idea right, and get everyone on the same page and the same idea as you. You're on the right track. And language is the key to formulating this unspoken understanding. To put on par 'what's in your head' with 'what's on my head.' Because even with this misunderstandings can occur, so how to more important to set it down in ink.

The process, the brainstorming process is also a boost to all in the team, from the CEO to the marketing person, it helps them sharpen and define the product further, to know and believe in the product they are selling.

Beautifully written it explains what I have been trying to grasp at my now defunct job. The new movement into the world of ideas and innovation. Something my bosses could not tell me.

I hated lit, did badly for english and almost flunked GP despite an interest in current affairs. That is the irony, but now, the way I am thrown into the world of language and delving deeper and deeper into it is astounding.

To trace its roots, it actually sparked in mass comms class about noam chomsky and linguistics. How language shapes the world.

Sometimes sentences like this don't mean a thing until it sinks in. Now it has, and I believe - language shapes the world. It creates the world.

Language is the tool that helps translate what's on my mind to you, to the audience, it spearheads communication. An obvious that takes more thought for the gravity of the idea to sink in.

People are already hampered by an inability of expression, and to make it worse, sometimes from a deeper psychological link stems from the inability to be truthful to one's needs and desires leading to a whole load of psycho babble. The media makes it worse, 90210 and Hollywood makes it even worse.

Are we limiting ourselves with the vocab we use? The vocab we hang around with, put ourselves into? I think so.

Beyond thinking out of the box. A catch phrase, and also an overused marketing psycho babble.

We need to figure out what's in the box. Is there anything that may be useful? Anything we need to throw out? We all live in boxes anyway. But we could expand the box, make it a transparent box so you could see the world and still remain safe, to consciously close the lid of the box, to keep it open, to open both ends, and a whole host of other possibilities.

What's wrong with the box anyway?

A whole new world

This is cool. I discovered a whole new world of 'naming' -- to create names for companies, products and services as a career. This is taking me into the world of branding, creativity and strategy. Its where Idea Evangalists aims to be. Striding on the margin between creativity and strategy.

http://www.sterlingbrands.com
http://www.idiomnaming.com

TASK 1: create 10 names for a seafood mail order company

Seafood Mail Order Japan

Fancy some mail-order Oysters or Kobe beef?

This is getting interesting. Tracing back to the trend of authenticity, "Good-for-me" and keeping it real, a seafood mail order company in Japan is selling fresh seafood by mail.

A mail-order staff will follow a fisherman out on his catch, negotiate the price with him after he's got the catch, all the time documenting the whole process. And the catch of the day is auctioned off online instantly. Nothing gets fresher and more authentic than this.

People are beginning to value natural produce and freshness, doing away with processed food that is the bane of the food and health industry now. People will also appreciate fishermen, farmers as a profession and they are compensated for their hardwork.

Soon the profession would be viewed as cool, with a slew of workers who have worked in institutions getting bogged down by the tedium of the rat race, they abandon conventional notions of a job to pursue a carefree life, to farm, fish, and get in touch with nature.

It could break monopolies with all the corporate scandals, people are viewing these conglomerates with distrust, rather, they would buy from their familiar grocer, willing to pay the premium for the trust and familiarity rather than to the conglomerates for their hierarchies.

Farm to Market
http://www.farm-2-market.com

Kobe Beef by Mail
http://www.allenbrothers.com/

pet peeves: oddball taxis

1. What is it with taxi-drivers and directions. "Ms, which way you want to go?" What's with this SOP? I wouldn't be taking the cab if I knew.

2. Taxi-drivers who remain silent from when you step in till when you reach your destination... "uncle, ion orchard." ........................................... no acknowledging that he's heard, just ...............................................

Corporate conspiracy

"Don't discuss Sony like its a great big benevolent character who lives next door to Astro Boy. Like any other company, Sony is comprised of individuals who are fearful for their jobs on a daily basis, and who make lame decisions based pretty much on fear and conforming to social norms -- but then, that's every corporation on earth, so don't single out one single corporation as lovable and cute."

jPod
Douglas Coupland

True. But i think Sony's got an edge, better than corporate America full of talk and lies.

Quotes that stick

How we might end up coping with information overload. Brain-drain. He captures the despondency of the Internet generation very well.

"I've noticed that, as we ramp up on our game-building skills and generalised knowledge about Ronald, we're googling every 10 minutes. The problem is, after a week of intense googling, we've started to burn out knowing the answer to everything. God must feel that way all the time. I think people in the year 2020 are going to be nostalgic for the sensation of being clueless."

jPod
Douglas Coupland

We're in an information age

I was thinking.. what are we gonna do with all this information? Are we going to complicate our lives? All you need to know is instant immediate. At the rate that data is flying about it seems like we are digging into a bottomless pit of information cycle that is difficult to extract. What's important is in simpletising.

So the magic lies in the philosopher's stone. Like in alchemy. To boil it all down till only gold is left. How to make it so simple that only gold is left?

Addicted

Kind of feels like I'm addicted to the Internet through my iTouch.

While I figure out a better name and the whole objective thing in place, this will stick for now.

Amazing

I can say what I want and never lose a thought. Never.

The power of wireless networking and an iTouch

I could blog and record all the crazy ideas, the thoughts that are running on a rampage and amok in my mind down anytime. How wonderful is that. I was just thinking.

"No one becames successful following social norms."
"No one stands out following social conventions."