The Lizard Brain

Fed up with the crap on TV I sat down with a beer and watched loads of great videos on the 99%. (The 99% Percent conferences are part of the Behance network I mentioned in an earlier post.)

Seth Godin's presentation above on "the lizard brain" is quite brilliant. The lizard brain refers to the Amygdala, a primitive section of our brain that controls our survival instincts. It's the little voice that tell us to stop before we embarrass ourselves; to refrain from challenging the status quo. Godin argues that being creative is easy, "shipping" or quieting the lizard brain long enough to actually produce an end product is the true genius of creativity.


His presentation is timed to the burning out of a candle, so it won't take to much time out of your day.

The Johnny Cash Project

 The Johnny Cash Project is a nice example of good, intelligent crowdsourcing. For the release of Mr.Cash's posthumous album, director Chris Milk has invited the public to contribute to the music video by painting over a chosen frame.

The painting tool they developed is simple and easy to use, making what could have been a long and arduous task into a simple one. The video itself looks great and it's full of very individual looking takes on very similar frames. Well worth a look.

It's worth remembering that the project hinges on a large and loyal fanbase. Would this idea work if you asked people to paint every frame of the new Coke ad? No. Crowdsourcing relies on a large, passionate fanbase who will work together to maintain the integrity and standard of what they are contributing to. Most brands don't seem to get that. This is an obvious observation but just you wait until some creative or marketing person somewhere sees this and the inevitable rip-off appears.    

Pure Genius

A brilliant idea by JWT for Heineken. Thanks to sociable.net.

Let yourself feel. from Esteban Diácono on Vimeo. This is a amazingly beautiful video and an equally beautiful song from Ólafur Arnalds Found Songs. Downloading the album from iTunes as we speak.

The first video to appear on collectcreate! Probably way to big so be patient. Spike Jonze, explosions, skateboarding, slow-mo and a cracking track...you can't go wrong!