Want all the street cred of graffiti, but really don’t like inhaling spray paint? BUFF diss is an Australian street artist that uses masking tape to create his art. His current exhibit, God Left The Building, is showing in a church in Pisa, Italy.
It’s a cool idea to rethink the medium of graffiti to be a less messy and less permanent. It allows you to make mistakes and correct them. It’s the street art equivalent of writing with a pencil instead of a pen. I have a blank wall at home, and now I’m really tempted to try to create my own “masterpiece.”
What’s the easiest way to get someone to do something? Make it fun. I remember when I was a kid, my mom convinced me that doing the laundry was fun. You get to sort stuff! You got to play with nobs on the washing machine! The machine buzzes and makes lots of noise! Sweet.
It wasn’t until many embarrassing years later when I realized that I had been Tom Sawyer’d into doing chores for fun. Damn.
A new movement has popped up in Sweden called “The Fun Theory” is based on the same thought. The easiest way to get people to change their behavior is to make it fun. So, you want to encourage people to take the stairs instead of the escalator. You know, because it’s healthy and stuff. How do you do it? Make it fun:
You want want people to toss their trash in a bin? Make it fun:
Hopefully, once people figure out what’s going on, they’ll forgive Volkswagen quicker than I forgave my mom. Plus, we should all really take the stairs.
What happens when you give 40 Colombians paintball guns and a blank canvas? This:
In Colombia, Andy Warhol’s Marilyn Monroe is the center piece of an ad campaign for Bon Yurt yogurt. I’m not really sure what this has to do with yogurt, but my Spanish sucks, so maybe you can tell me. Regardless, they created some sick art with unconventional tools. All in about 45 seconds. That’s some cool shit. And I think it’s given me the excuse I need to buy that paintball gun I’ve always wanted.
The landscape of North American pro sports needs a shakeup. I’ve written about the problems with the lack of competition before. I’ve even proposed some solutions. But in reading a post called The Smart List: 12 Shocking Ideas That Could Change the World I came across a solution from two professors – Szymanski and Ross. It could break the monopolies and create a better competitive business environment that would benefit the whole economy in the way that only a free market can.
The Problem
Major league athletes are rewarded for talent, toughness, and single-minded dedication. Major league team owners, on the other hand, are rewarded for mediocrity. Having bought their way into a league, lackadaisical owners can extort hundreds of millions of dollars from their hometowns (and charge exorbitant ticket prices) under threat of decamping for another city. They can allow wretched teams to languish year after year and pocket the league’s revenue-sharing money rather than invest it in talent, knowing that when they’re ready to sell, a scrum of millionaire suitors will materialize.
That’s because big league teams in North America —and the leagues themselves—are, in effect, monopolies. Major League Baseball even has an explicit antitrust exemption. Without name recognition, fan loyalty, and access to top talent, an upstart league doesn’t stand a chance.
The Solution
How to spark owners with the same competitive fire they demand of their players? Szymanski and Ross have a plan: Make teams compete for a spot in the majors.
The guys borrowed their model from European soccer. In that system, no team is assured of a place in the top national league. Instead, each league has multiple levels: England’s Premier League, Spain’s La Liga, and Italy’s Serie A are all the top rungs of their respective ladders. At the end of each season, the bottom few teams at each level are relegated to the rung below and are replaced by that level’s winners.
Applied to American pro sports, the European system would eliminate the artificial scarcity that owners exploit. Anyone with the resources could simply start their own team and play their way up into the top tier. As a result, owners looking to boost their take by threatening to skip town would find they had no leverage, since other cities big enough to support a serious contender for the top tier would already have one. And there would be no such thing as a perennial cellar dweller; teams that performed poorly would be demoted. Demotion would cut their value, driving even the most complacent owner to do what it takes to get competitive. “You’re sharpening the incentives,” Szymanski says.
Best Made makes customized axes. I found out about them from reading Hugh’s site. They’ve created a niche. A micromarket. And a successful one. They sell $350 axes.
For those not familiar with the current “market price” for an axe, you can pick one up from a hardware store for about $40. And it will work. It’ll be well balanced. It will last a 20 years. It will chop wood.
But the gentlemen at Best Made have visions for axes outside of chopping wood. What if you took an axe, which is normally just a tool, and transformed it into something more.
A trophy.
Wall art.
A display.
The perfect gift.
And that’s exactly what they’ve done. As it says on their site:
Every high-rise condo, luxury office, executive suite, ranch house, and farmstead must have an axe in it. We know that axes shouldn’t only be in the hands of lumberjacks: anyone and everyone should have an axe in their name.
Put it in your cubicle, give it to your niece as a graduation present, or your dad for father’s day (or better yet mom for mother’s day), bring it to the company picnic, carry it to the door next time Jehovah’s Witness come knocking, or just lean it up against your living room wall and admire.
An axe is indispensable and sublime, the epitome of self-reliance and independence, a perfect design object, a timeless instrument.
So, now they sell customized axes for $350 a pop. For a couple of c-notes, they can provide you with a sense of outdoors manliness in the trappings of the your daily life. Simple. Smart. Brilliant.
I’ve posted about this before, but One Laptop per Child is dedicated to providing educational opportunities for the word’s poorest children. The concept is simple. The results are going to be extraordinary in about 10 to 15 years. Check out the video here:
During difficult times, only good ideas can light up the path out of the crisis. Ideas are energy! They emerge in a moment and spread at the speed of thoughts and people channel them. Ideas are passed on from person to person until their radiance becomes powerful enough to light up the future.
The Adris Group has more than 3,000 employees. Each one of them can come up with an idea that can make the world better, but it is only when they all come together with a single goal that the power of their ideas becomes capable of shattering the darkness. That is why this book glows in the dark ? It is charged with over 3000 good ideas!
Gimmick? Yup. But way to take something boring (an annual report) and make it interesting in a way that speaks volumes about the company. Cheers to whoever was had the balls to transform the annual report into something awesome.
A new spot from Microsoft for their new release of Microsoft Office. A really good farce. It’s good to see that they’re able to make fun of themselves. I guess it’s easy to do when the only product you’re really competing against is older versions of your own software.
I like the fact that they have been able to weave their product around an entertaining idea – a film. People want to watch it and pass it along because it’s actually enjoyable to watch. I think a lot of the time, companies forget that people just want have fun and be entertained. It’s a simple as that. Enjoy.
It’s so brilliant because it’s so simple. You still get the benefit of disposable water, but without the everlasting pollution that is plastic water bottles.
I stumbled across these pictures while reading Fast Company. They are from the Schönbrunn Zoo in Vienna. This summer its animals share their pens with an installation created by artists Christoph Steinbrener and Rainer Dempf that reflects the degradation of animal habitats.
It flies in the face of the conventional way that we view animal habitats. It will influence the children that come to visit the zoo. It serves as a startling argument for change.
I like it. It goes against the norm to deliver a message that breaks through. It’s a good educational tool, it’s great art, but it’s also great advertising.
To see how he made this piece, click here.
