mindblob

One year time machine

Fantastic image originally uploaded by jagus

 

Mark Goren from Transmission Content + Creative blog, tagged me quite a while ago now (sorry for being so late, Mark), to dive into mindblob archives and point 5 posts out that some of my new readers might have missed. Well Mark thank you for thinking about me... now listen to this : as a matter of fact today, it’s been a year since I landed here... A year since “Introducing mindblob”. A year of boldly exploring the bloggosphere. So, isn’t it the perfect occasion to use a time machine and travel backwards?

Once upon a time (yeah, I love that start), lead by insightful posts focusing on the essence and richness of connected brains... I jumped into documenting the meaning of “BLOGGING : Growing ideas”. Then, simply “wondering” like an Alien on planet earth. Trying to find answers about blogging itself and what makes people be attracted by that phenomenon. Naturally seeking the “Intentions of a Blogger”... and thanks to the precious help of attentive readers, adapting visions of “Blogging motivators”.

In the meantime, extending a few side stories that attracted my attention, like “The era of the electric cars” (my most Googled post actually. And I like that, because it is good to “feel” that people care about their planet and ways to use greener energies - Sigh!). Discovering creativity in unexpected, touching places thanks to “Don Quixote's Children”. Being impressed by the courage and incredible challenge of a woman sailing the oceans, alone and “Against the Winds”.

Moving towards CONSCIOUSNESS with a strange metaphor in mind : blogging is like the sum of small drops of water... it has the power of making huge waves. Beware of the pressure and “Open the tank”. This said, I couldn't help being lifted by a wave like a little Z-fish and so being the witness of mutations and transformations of that wave. Then back to earth and “wondering” again... what our future jobs will be, what we would like them to be, thinking... “Evolution, Revolution & YOU”.

Sometimes being silly too, like pointing to little “Minuscule” links that make us all smile or sing, considering we may sometimes need “Office mood boosters” or to escape from our daily routines, maybe.

Like the rabbit with a watch of a wonderful journey (see which one?), I was lucky to discover that taking a “walk on the whack side”, sometimes leads you to experiences never imagined before. There is something extra-ordinary (I mean out of the ordinary) behind all this. More than words, more than brains. It’s all about people, humans, YOU (my friends), us... and little bugger me... LINKED together, SHARING thoughts, LEARNING and hopefully GROWING together. That SPIRIT touched me... and I must say it did like never before. So as a good little Alien, I share with you my report to planet Zgork:

   

“After a year spent into the sphere, I must say what’s happening is huge. Humans are becoming more connected. They are linking their brains together and it gives them new powers that they are still exploring and trying to figure out. This will obviously make their world smaller and lead them to taking new kinds of actions into reality. They were not scared to share with me. I was not to share with them. Time does not matter. Space does not matter. They are my new friends and I THANK (them) YOU ALL for being “there”. YES... The Blob is still growing... and after jumping in... it feels good to be part of it!”

 

To be continued...

Wizzzzzzz.    : )

 

PS : Looking at this picture from Jagus... I flew through time to when I was a little kid. Making “inventions” and also “really” traveling through time. Jagus, congrats... this little boy is not lacking imagination. Please give him all my encouragements and tell him not to forget the "backwards button". I forgot to put one to my machine... now I must keep living in the world of adults (a bit silly I know!)  ; )

 

Office mood booster dub

   

If you read from RSS reader : check it out here.

 

You’re at the office and looking for a mood booster? This video definitely kicks a LOT of positive energy out. Here is the story. Just imagine : Connected Ventures, a group of friends who work for: Vimeo, CollegeHumor, Busted Tees, and Defunker... It’s the end of the day and they have a camera. Then someone says “Hey... what if we’d make like a video... play a song and try to lip-dub it?”. Well, they did it and it looks fantastic.

 

Think about this (and view it again):
One sequence shot + lip sync.

 

From a production point of view : it's simply BRILLIANT ! Mood booster and a very positive image of team spirit. And guess what: they are hiring! Work environment, HR, PR, insight, generation next company... here we go! Congrats Guys! You rock!

 

PS : Thanks to Yann for the link (Yo dude... so, when do you start your blog?)   ; )

 

NYC walk on the Whack side

 

As you could read on my last post, my journey to New York was a “first”. The main idea was to “be there for CK’s Momma tree”. So this trip was planned short and compact... leaving me 2 days on location (just assuming that it would be just enough to cope with the jet lag – well, not really as you can imagine!).

Being in New York one day before the meeting, there was something I had in mind and didn’t want to miss: getting one of Roger von Oech’s Ball of Whacks. Believe me or not, I was curious about this object ever since I saw it on Roger’s blog. I had been trying to get one from Belgium and just couldn’t find the right site to order it from at the time (Sigh! I notice now that they are for sale, and apparently worldwide, on Roger's Creative Whacks Company site). And by the way, I strongly encourage you to read Roger's blog. It is full of creativity insights, ideas, brain food and also links to very nice people.

 

Anyway, here is my story... finding this exclusive item in New York city. To make sure I wouldn’t get lost between distances, taxi and timings, I prepared my day trip on Google Earth (perfect tool for NYC, plus viewing paths in 3D is both cool and useful for a visual mind like mine). All I needed was a store address where to find one for sure. At that stage, I made it simple... turned Skype “on” and called Roger himself (we know each other from blogging and exchanging mails every once in a while).

You see Roger was also involved in CK's Momma tree project, so he knew I was in New York for the event. This said, I understand I might have surprised him a bit calling to have a store address. Nevertheless, Roger was "there" on the phone and it was very nice talking to him for the first time (I’d love to do it to chat about another creative topic too, though!). Roger gently emailed me 2 addresses where I should be able to find the Holy Grail... woops... I mean, the Ball of Whacks (BoW) : FAO Schwarz and The MoMA Design Store.

 

At the end of a long shopping list day (family goodies list always comes first, right!)... there was one item left -guess what!- and a few minutes before stores close. See what I mean? Feet on fire, but I made it just on time to FAO Schwarz. I fly in...  (“Hi guards!... What? Guards? Ok, guards...”) and start scanning the store, speeding through the alleys. No BoW in sight. Suddenly something happened, don’t ask me why. My mind just... zapped (you see, like when reading a book and without notice, your mind flashes out of it to create another side story):

Back to normal speed. I just realized that I was not focusing on target and that I was running out of time. Let’s go ask the concierge :

 

- Him :     “Haaa! That thing? Yeah... we had plenty just a few days ago, then something happened... and... woosh!... ALL GONE!”

– Me :     “Errrr... may I ask you what happened?”

- Him :     “Sure... See, we ran out of Rubik’s cube and were looking for a good replacement in the central shelf and thought about that Ball of Whack –not to say the BoW should have never been displayed there- Then we thought it would be good to have a demonstrator there to show what could be done out of that thing.”

- Me :     “Excellent, and then...?”

- Him :     “That’s when people went crazy... When they saw a squirrel, a sun, a frog, and all the possible combinations... they started to buy them by packs of 3. They were like: ‘And take two more for your brothers’... kinda thing, see wat I mean? Within a few hours we were sold out. Geeee... I’m sorry Sir, there isn’t ONE left”.

 

I was happy to hear such a great “sale” story and to bring it back to Roger... but a bit disappointed not to find a least one left. Hopefully after checking with the concierge, I realized that I was not too far away from the MoMA and so continued my quest in that direction. Outside the store (“Bye Guards!”)... I saw a yellow tricycle parked in front of FAO. The guy sitting on it seemed to be very expressive and was laughing with a friend cyclist. So I thought I’d just double check the way  to the MoMA with him. My simple question seemed to be like an MIT clue to him. He started to talk in Turkish with his friend who obviously was giving him the directions (4-5 blocks away!). He was so nice trying to translate the information to me in English –I mean with a wonderful accent and smile- that I decided to ask him to give me a ride there.

He turned a ghetto blaster on (hidden under passenger seat) and started to paddle full throttle. As we were ridding our 150 decibels of Latino hip hop RnB around 5th, I realized we were not just playing music... there was also the video clip, right between my feet, on an LCD screen ! ! ! (...found that clip on YouTube : "Jagged Edge ft Voltio: she SO amazing") - Amazing New York city indeed! (check it out).

 

   

End of the ride... MoMA Design Store. Open doors... eyes scanner “on”. Left, right, left... “Meep!”... found it: “The Ball of Whacks”! Yeeehaaa! Music, please!

Okay, this story is indeed a little “off the road”. Off regular posts maybe. But I thought I would bring it back to Roger, because I never imagined that on my simple quest to get a red rhombic triacontahedron, I would go through : Google Earth, Skype, FAO guards, giant candies, giant pianos, super-heroes, magic eyes, concierge stories, Turkish tricycle ride, Latino hip hop RnB, MoMA design and innovative items. Since none of this would have happened without aiming to the Ball of Whacks, I want to say thank you Roger for this unexpected extra-ordinary journey! Of course, I’ll come back to the Ball of Whacks in another more dedicated post... In the meantime, my learnings through all this?

 

- Conversation leads to very nice discoveries,

- Product demonstration (still) helps sell products,

- One product might be bought for different reasons (hint, hint!),

- People buying make more people want to buy,

- Magic... may detour us from our most determined goals,

- Surprises may be found looking down (*).

 

Now, if you don’t have a Ball of Whacks, go get one right now...
And if you do, go get it, because this object is magic and if you can figure out how... it will reveal its hidden secret.

Any idea of what it is?   ; )

 

(*) PS : Maybe when we cross people in the streets who are looking down, it's because they are trying to find a surprise. Then maybe we can help them find it?

 

The Spirit of the Tree

Saturday May 24th was a very special day. A unique day in fact. As a matter of fact, I am a bit late on covering this event, but didn’t we once read somewhere that for some “essential things of life, time does not matter”?

 

Anyway... on that day, a simple intention became reality and (I believe) brought joy to one of our dearest friend blogger, CK. The idea came through a email I was lucky to receive one day, proposing to plant a tree in honor of Sandra J. Kerley, CK’s Momma (if you don’t know about the tragic accident, read this). The email was originally written by Drew McLellan (from Des Moines, Iowa, USA) and reached me via Gavin Heaton (Australia – talking about “distance”) who knew I was one of CK’s friend and thought I could feel concerned about the content of the email. And indeed, Drew’s words touched me, as I immediately felt connected to the intention behind them :

 

“We’re going to be planting a mature tree in one of NYC’s parks and the tree will have a plaque honoring CK’s mom.  That way, CK can go visit the tree if she wants...and knows that a part of her mom is there in her city.”

 

Mails flew around the planet, people got involved in the project, and a very nice tree was planted at the Family Garden Park in New York City. The rest of the story you probably know by know... Drew McLellan, David Reich, Valeria Maltoni, Lewis Green and I met in NYC in the names of all the bloggers involved (*) in this project to offer the tree to our friend CK.

(*) David Armano, Roger Von Oech, Mack Collier, Toby Bloomberg, Tim Jackson, Marianne Richmond, From Marketing Profs: Ann Handley, Val Frazee, Sharon Edwards and Carrier Shearer, Mario Sundar, Gianandrea Facchini, Cam Beck, Gavin Heaton, Katie Chatfield, Matt Dickman, Paul McEnany

   

Sometimes in our lives “things happen” that barely no words can explain. It appears to me that this is all about being “human”, about listening to heart beats, about sharing, about “believing”, about Love and friendship. CK covered this unique day with the depth of her own eyes and heart in a post o-so-full of vibrations (check the beautiful photo tree-montage!). Drew shared his genuine thoughts here. Lewis, wrote a great detailed story here. Valeria’s delicate words are simply moving over here. David resumes the day and the time spent together in one post, not to say one brilliant word: Priceless.

 

Coming to New York made sense to me, because the intention, the “spirit” of the tree was “good” and addressed to a very special and generous person (...and I must say I’m really thankful to my wife for understanding this and letting me go for it). Meeting Drew and his lovely family, Valeria, Lewis and David was an intense thrill and at the same time, felt like a family meeting. You know, like a day you gather on a special occasion and talk while having diner. Just one detail: most of us had never met before, but were instantly on the same frequency. Lots of ideas to exchange, common thoughts or visions to share, experiences and perspectives flying around the table. A moment out of time, spent with fantastic friends. Guys, let me tell you... this I will never forget. THANK YOU ALL for "being there".

- Left to right :  CK, Valeria - Standing : Lewis, Luc, Drew and David -

   

But wait, there is more...

When it was time to say goodbye, CK... completely surprised me. She asked if I had already been to NYC before. She understood it was indeed a first time, and that I had made a quick trip and wouldn’t really have time to visit the city. It took her a fraction of a second to take the initiative. Now I’d like you to focus on this : just imagine, after dealing with the unexpected, intense emotion of the day, she improvised and gently pushed me into a city tour of New York... with her taking the lead role of the guide. Fantastic! I would have never ever thought about that. Well, this is how she is... generous, and giving time, energy and heart to her friends – and I’m not even talking about the sharp eye and smart vision of the brilliant professional she is. Being there was an honor. Being your friend is definitely one too. THANK YOU CK !

    

- Guided through the heart of New York City -

And there is... even more :

Just Check CK’s post following meetup and sharing ideas with Drew McLellan in NYC. Yet another thrilling proposition to the community. After being in contact via our blogs, after sharing written ideas, emails and sometimes voice or video conferences over the oceans and continents, what if we would just meet for face-to-face conversations... and socialize? Wow! Yet another thoughtful challenge. There is a survey to feel the pulse (before July 1st) and an open perspective to actually MAKE THE WORLD SMALLER.

 

Guess what... that’s NOT all folks :

In her post “The world gets smaller (mindblob, me & NYC)” –I feel blessed to get such an article, after being lucky to live such an experience live (sigh!)- she went even further and created a link with Belgian bloggers I had not met yet. The day after her post I received a mail from Kris Hoet (Cross the Breeze) and we... just... met. Then, Philippe Deltenre also (Bad idea, indeed). -It was a real pleasure to meet you guys!- Now, we are planning to meet again with other Belgian chocolate eaters and create a Belgian Connection for good.

Macro-world conversation making micro-world connections...
How about that ?   : )