The Art of the Idea with John Hunt

via mad-blog.com

Creative founding partner of TBWA and author of "The Art of the Idea" John Hunt delivers a thought inspiring talk on innovation, branding, and much more. See part one above and then watch part two here.

Favorite Quote: "I think agencies should feel the genuine obligation to help society."

Posted via web from LaurenProctor's Thinking Posterous

Stale Chips and Other Reasons Why We Should Rethink The Way Companies Operate

I woke up this morning with an intense craving for salsa, the kind that leads you sprinting for the kitchen with eyes still bleary and a lack of balance that sends you bumping into walls. Usually I make my own chips, but this morning cried urgent hunger so I reached into the back of my pantry and grabbed a bag of tortilla strips I'd bought a few weeks ago out of laziness and should have thrown away.

But like I said, I wanted salsa. And if you know me, you know my combination of an iron stomach and twisted, stubborn hubris means I'll eat just about anything no matter how weird it smells or old it seems. And so I started eating.

The salsa was everything I'd dreamt of (literally, a salsa dream is what started this all), but the chips, they were a different matter entirely. And as I chewed I had a bit of an epiphany. Why should chips get stale? The answer is, they shouldn't have to.

It's not like chips are made of organic ingredients and real corn. They're practically crunchy chemicals, yet no one has solved the stale problem? It seems counterintuitive. Counterintuitive unless you're the chip company aiming to earn as much money as possible from families who will either devour your chips or buy a new bag the second the chips lose their crunchy freshness.

And so I wonder: Will it ever become truly integral for brands to tap into the entirety of their resource base in order to give us a product that's top of the line, as best as it can be for consumers?

Will we all ever truly be on the same team where win-win isn't a rare choice but a standard business practice? And if that were to occur how would innovation change? Most of all, how unstoppable could we be?

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Bring the house to shambles with the dancing you'll do to Finn Riggins, a band best suited for fans of Matt and Kim and other fast rock.

Rock Paper Scissors, An Important Environmental Breakthrough

There's a new paper that's made of stone. It's called TerraSkin and production takes half the energy of regular paper. According to a recent article in Business Week it's recyclable and durable, but if "exposed to sunlight and humidity long enough" it "breaks down like talcum powder." I'm not sure what long enough means, but sales of these bags are expected to triple by the end of 2009 and some proponents of green are calling TerraSkin a major solution.

All I have to say is that I can hardly wait to offer to carry a TerraSkin bag for someone and then say, "Goodness this is heavy! What do you have in here, rocks?!?!?!"

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And in case that wasn't enough pun for one night, until you get your hands on a rock bag you should rock out to Frankmuzik electro style.