I’m so excited for Pearl Jam Twenty, an upcoming documentary made by the great Cameron Crowe (who also directed Almost Famous, the only band movie I love). Here’s the first trailer, released today:
Through the morass of marketing buzzwords and new technologies, navigating the field of social media marketing can seem difficult. Engage. Influence. Target. The tiring terms are so prevalent they even slip into my vocabulary.
But through it all, there is a simple concept that puts everything into a healthy perspective. It’s a concept that most people already know but often forget when muddled with the distractions of everyday marketing life:
Friend-to-friend.
Forget about “engaging.” Don’t stress about “influencing.” Nuts to “targeting.”
Consider yourself a new individual entering a cocktail party. You have your background and valuable thoughts to share, as does everyone else, and you want nothing more than to have meaningful conversations with the other members of the event. Do you look for who seems to be the most “influential” person and start spitting your ideas?
No, you introduce yourself politely to a few people, share stories and become better acquainted. A relationship is built through mutual respect with the potential of building trust if your ideas are relevant. You treat each other as friends and share value as if you were friends. The “engaging” and “influencing” comes naturally as a side-benefit, with a relationship built on caring. Because that’s what friends do for one another.
How do you become “friends” with your customers?
Follow the Oprah effect. Many of her fans don’t personally know her, but would probably be willing to follow her into the sea. Trust through respect: Give out value as you receive it, while focusing your efforts on positive industry change and not profits or the increase in marketing metrics. Treat your customers as if they were close: be honest, compassionate and human, and you will find reciprocation.
Friend-to-friend is a concept that refocuses everything that’s already been said ad nauseam in social media marketing, a more polite framework for reimagining how to “engage” and “influence” your “target” demographics.
I wrote this four years ago on a southbound train after traveling through NYC. I met a lot of great people, many of whom I’m still friends with, and the experience was more than just memorable. In an effort to combine all my favorite bits of my life into this blog, I’m sharing this again today…
“Sometimes a kind of glory lights up the mind of a man. It happens to nearly everyone. You can feel it growing or preparing like a fuse burning toward dynamite. It is a feeling in the stomach, a delight of the nerves, of the forearms. The skin tastes the air, and every deep-drawn breath is sweet.”
In John Steinbeck’s, “East of Eden,” dreamer Adam Trask is blessedly burdened by his infatuation for Cathy Ames, a deceptive woman with an agenda other than his love. And whatever conviction he held in his dreaming, he held true despite her apathy. And he did great things in her name and attributed them to her, his muse, before she left him.
“Whatever Cathy may have been, she set off the glory in Adam. His spirit rose flying and released him from fear and bitterness and rancid memories. The glory lights up the world and changes it the way a star shell changes a battlefield.”
And while we can attribute glory to external inspiration, it would be a shame not to attribute the glory to our own potential… that the inspiration only drew out what was inside of us all along. Because, if the inspiration should ever leave us, we can find comfort in knowing it was only a clever device to get us going.
“Then a breeze would move her bright hair, or she would raise her eyes, and Adam would swell out in his stomach with a pressure of ecstasy that was close kin to grief.”
That New York City stands as the greatest city in the world is unquestionable (though one may still regard one’s present home as more livable or loved). Historic. Modern. Tragic. Hopeful. A sort of glory of humanity, a monument for civilization’s sins, successes and squanders. It inspires the best out of anyone with the willingness to look.
And whatever it is that inspires a man to come here, whether he finds it or not, he can be certain he’ll leave with something satisfactory:
Conviction and glorious dreams of a better future, and newfound inspiration with himself.
“‘A kind of light spread out from her. And everything changed color. And the world opened out. And a day was good to awaken to. And there were no limits to anything. And the people of the world were good and handsome…
As an avid consumer of film, friends often ask me for recommendations. Rather than tell all of you one at a time, I’ve compiled this list with links to the respective items on Netflix. I watch a ton of Italian films, so this list could’ve been a lot heavier in that genre. I limited my picks to only two for diversity, but if you’d like to know my other favorites, just ask me.
A seasoned British drug dealer (Daniel Craig) longs to ditch his illegal trade. But he can’t do that without wrapping up just one more job involving the drug-addicted daughter of an influential criminal and a gargantuan stash of purloined ecstasy. The cache’s original owners are after him as well, leaving him with no other choice but to run for his life. Matthew Vaughn directs this intricate drama, which debuted at the Sundance Film Festival.
From the writers of my favorite film (see #1), here is yet another Italian film about brothers not getting along. Set in the politically charged 60s, it’s a nice period piece offering a glimpse of a past in a country that’s not ours. Beautifully shot and you get that cool Roman dialect. Aoh!
In a small Italian town, two disparate brothers come of age during the 1960s and ’70s. Accio (Elio Germano) and Manrico (Riccardo Scamarcio) remain close despite their opposing political views, but when they both fall for the same woman, the rift between them grows. Taking place over a 15-year period, this comic drama directed by Daniele Luchetti explores Italy’s changing sociopolitical landscape through the brothers’ turbulent relationship.
Sci-fi at its best, it serves as a parable of humanity and a tour de force on the part of Sam Rockwell.
As he nears the end of a lonely three-year stint on the moon base Sarang, astronaut Sam Bell (Sam Rockwell) begins to hear and see strange things. It’s not long before Sam suspects that his employer — the conglomerate LUNAR — has other plans for him. Featuring Kevin Spacey as the voice of a robot, this sci-fi thriller also stars Matt Berry and Kaya Scodelario. The film was an official selection at the Sundance Film Festival.
One of the best films I’ve ever seen. Totally gripping. It’s like Slumdog Millionaire with more action, grittier drama and less dancing. The sequel, City of Men, is also pretty good.
Buscapé (Alexandre Rodrigues) is frightened he’ll end up like the countless others around him — troubled, violent or dead. But his saving grace is his photographer’s eye, through which the stories of several people who live in his forsaken Cidade de Deus unfold. Fernando Meirelles and Kátia Lund direct this sobering look at life inside a Rio de Janeiro housing project, reputed to be one of the most dangerous parts of an otherwise magical city.
By far my favorite film of all time. I speak about it ad nauseam. I wrote about it in this blog post.
This sprawling drama that originally aired as a miniseries on Italian television sweeps from the 1960s to the 21st century, tracking the journey of two brothers, Nicola (Luigi Lo Cascio) and Matteo (Alessio Boni), who strain their family bond by taking two totally different paths. After traveling, Nicola becomes a successful psychiatrist, while Matteo becomes a policeman intent on catching criminals. But they also wind up at odds politically.
The film is being shown in two parts, three hours each, with separate admissions. You don’t have to see both parts on the same day, but you may want to. It is a luxury to be enveloped in a good film, and to know there’s a lot more of it — that it is not moving inexorably toward an ending you can anticipate, but moving indefinitely into a future that is free to be shaped in surprising ways. When you hear that it is six hours long, reflect that it is therefore also six hours deep.
Making people dance and making people think don’t have to be mutually exclusive. Sometimes you can do both with a catchy beat and thoughtful lyrics. It’s the songwriters’ unicorn to craft a tune that’s catchy enough to ensnare a listener while being lyrical with such a quality that the song is not promptly dismissed. By now we’ve all heard Rebecca Black’s “Friday,” a song with all the characteristics of a successful pop track with absolutely zero substance. It’s fascinating, really, and I’ll admit I listened to that horrible track more times than I should’ve… for research, of course.
Here are a few of my recent favorite finds — artists that balance well the heavy and the high.
I’m absolutely loving Oh Land‘s debut self-titled second album (recommended by suki). Born Nanna Øland Fabricius from Copenhagen, her music exhibits all the eccentric characteristics that make me admire sounds from Scandinavia. Unlike more obscure stuff, Oh Land utilizes catchy melodies and driving percussiveness, which I’m happy to discover is actually a word. This isn’t surprising as Pharrell Williams is listed among the production credits.
It’s no surprise that I love hip hop. I recently purchased Lupe Fiasco‘s Lasers, an album that reminds me a lot of T.I.‘s Paper Trail in terms of celebratory anthems mixed in with more somber tracks featuring meaningful messages. His rhymes are seldom corny — an adjective that can describe at least several verses on even some of the best rap records — and the production on the record is strong. It’s a nice follow-up to Lupe’s previous albums, and it serves as a good replacement for T.I.’s somewhat mediocre recent release.
From the UK and the year 2006 comes Through the Windowpane by Guillemots (pronounced “gillimotts”), another recent discovery of mine via a recommendation through a beer-loving lady friend. What struck me most about them was their fully orchestrated sound — open, lush and ambient, it’s something I really resonate with. Their third studio album, Walk the Line, was recently released on the 18th of April. I’ll make an effort to check it out.
Making people dance and making people think don’t have to be mutually exclusive. Sometimes you can do both with a catchy beat and thoughtful lyrics. It’s the songwriters’ unicorn to craft a tune that’s catchy enough to ensnare a listener while being lyrical with such a quality that the song is not promptly dismissed. By now we’ve all heard