The Wilderness Downtown – The Arcade Fire

Flash vs. HTML5 – who will win? If the Arcade Fire promotional website (The Wilderness Downtown) is any indication, HTML5 all the way. Ad Age recently included the Creativity’s best ad “Arcade Fire: The Wilderness Downtown Trailer” in their morning newsletter, and the ad is amazing. It’s essentially a trailer for the music video. The whole concept was designed by Chris Milk from @radical.media and Google’s Aaron Koblin from the Google Creative Lab.

Basically, it’s an interactive music video for the song “We Used to Wait” that utilizes Google’s Chrome Browser and HTML5. You type in the address that you grew up in, and it takes you on a journey incorporating Google Maps. It is way cool and the functionality is amazing. You even get… [Read More]

I wonder often how anyone could have coined the phrase

Sticks and stones may break my bones, but names will never hurt me

when we’ve all been at the hurtful end of prejudicial words that cut deep, and sometimes leave wounds that last longer than a bruise. Especially when I have also seen words inspire and start movements. And, for me, there has been nothing more powerful than the first time I said my son’s name allowed to him moments after his birth. That kind of power is staggering…humbling.

I believe in words and the roots of words. I was the kid who looked forward to that section of the SATs where I had to match a word to its meaning by dissecting its Latin root and hoping I got it right. Maybe if I’d actually ever truly prepared for those tests, I would have even done well at… [Read More]

Mayor Karl Dean and the Nashville Music Council held it’s first public meeting on June 29th at the W.O. Smith Music School. The NMC was created by the mayor and the local Chamber of Commerce, and is made up of 50 music industry professionals ranging from Mark Montgomery (2007 Nashville Business Journal’s Entrepreneur of the Year) to Tim DuBois (Pollstar’s Record Executive of the Year). The council’s goals are to expand the Music City brand, grow public education music programs, increase live music presence, and produce more ‘creative types’ in Nashville.

Nashville Music Council certainly understands the role technology plays in the new music business – or the “wild west” as Ken Levitan (President of Vector Management) calls it. In an attempt to bring in more creative businesses, plans may already be in the works for entrepreneurial tax incentives in designated areas. Other efforts for small business and ‘starving artists’… [Read More]

Fellow Social Deviant, Taylor Vick, and I met with a business associate, Celeste Rains of Flying Otter Marketing, at local hot spot The Patterson House, Nashville’s answer to the mixology rage sweeping the nation. It is a dimly-lit and not very air conditioned lounge in a historic house where drinks cost between $10 and $15 a pop, but which create a flavor explosion in your mouth proving that chemistry and alcohol DO mix.

Trying hard to sip, not gulp, our concoctions (to stretch the flava AND the dolla), Celeste brought up a good observation about new clients. Sometimes people assume that because you do one part of the industry that you also do another — like assuming that because you work in social media, that you also know graphic design or how to build a web site. That would be like asking a plumber to… [Read More]

Earlier this month I was asked by the good people at Scarritt-Bennett Center to host a conversation on social media for writers during their Room to Write retreat. Having had the privilege of attending one such retreat myself in December, I was honored to accept.
The familiarity with social media ranged from “What’s Twitter?” to network-savvy folks who just haven’t quite figured out how to get all the cogs in the wheel working together.

The biggest questions concerning most of the group were these:
1. “Which social networks do I need and why?” This question consisted of everything from, “Do I really need a Blog” to “Why do I need a Facebook page if I already have a Profile?” and more.

ANSWER: The first step in knowing what social networks you need, is defining your goal or goals. Are you trying to get an agent, editor… [Read More]