a little more about active remembering

(Apology and advance warning: approach this post, written whilst feeling tired and worthy, with caution.) Had an argument about the T-Mobile ad with someone in the week. Well, not really an argument, more of a disagreement in conversation. This argument's been going back and forth for a couple of weeks. Some people love it, others don't. It's done its job, of course, because everyone's talking about it. And I can see why people love it. There's a big part of me that wants to as well. I love the spontaneous dancing you get in musicals, for example. But it just feels a bit contrived and, ironically, disconnected for me. So I was going to post something about it, to try to explain why it left me feeling so cold. But then I read two lovely things about connectedness by Asi and Ted. And they made me remember something about active remembering which I'd started to develop. The thing they have in common with each other and the T-Mobile ad is how technologies are enabling people to express themselves in new relations to each other and to brands (and the best brands to people, obviously). We're springing up all sorts of content around our friendships, loves, families and even the vaguest of acquaintances. Pushing what feel like more meaningful emotional buttons. So I found myself thinking how social media and the technologies that support them are a kind of active remembering tool. You might be posting to your Facebook, Twitter, blog or something else to actively remember yourself to a friend. A kind of "remember what we have" message. Or to actively remember an experience you shared, putting your memories in a communal place. And I know that's all kind of obvious. But anyway. It made me feel quite wow. Active remembering is a way of expressing your identity in different contexts and spaces again and again. Some of them may be individual, and some of them may be social. And it made me think, what a powerful thing for brands to harness. And then again, if you're trying to shout about it before you've really, meaningfully, invested in enabling it, you're probably doing it the wrong way around. (Pic courtesy of this person.)

watch and learn from the watchmen

A friend sent me this vid promoting Watchmen earlier this week. I'd already seen this one on the origins of Dr Manhattan. I absolutely frickin' love them. Executionally I love the fact there's no super or voiceover to finish them off, they are their own thing. They don't treat you like an idiot. And there are so many sweet touches to make the world of the story part of our own. What a great example of how films can promote themselves, creating content that yields more, making you anticipate more. It's not a first, I know, plenty of others have done it. The Wire's backstory pieces about McNulty, Omar et al spring to mind. And I know from Tash that children's books can also do this. But it did make me think, even if you're not a content brand, how might you spin out the stories about your product or service in a way that interweaves with people's sense of real life? Like Ted says, Howies' Hand-Me-Downs are a good example of backstory being traced into the product. But I'm sure lots more could be done by many others. And what an interesting world it would be.

making mundane meaningful

So this is a very unoriginal post. I've just been noticing lots of blogging about measurement and gaming scores. Things about visualising your energy consumption. Making the invisible into a visible trace. That sort of thing. And it all feels very relevant and very important for 2009. So as a start to getting my head around it, I've set myself up over here. (Site discovered via Russell.) Now I never need update my Twitter or Facebook status ever again...

new on the blogroll

I had time to catch up on plenty of blog reading over the holiday, and I've come across two new (to me, at least) ones that are especially worth checking out. Matt Jones writes Think Story Experience, on how stories and experiences help to build brands. Ted writes Let's Be Human Beings (named, he reliably informs me, after the film by Mike Mills, from which the image above is taken). I would love them just for the names alone. But there's also some really interesting thinking going on here too. So they are well worth checking out when you have a few minutes. Welcome to the blogroll, chaps.