Some clarity to brand platform

Possibly related to the fact that it’s 9/11 but also because I think it’s the most successful angle, I’m heading more in a national security direction for the ‘tree power’ brand platform. Since harnessing tree power can provide information on environmental changes, prevent forest fires and detect radioactive smuggling, tree power can make Americans safer and more secure.

Tree power will improve safety and security for all Americans. I’m focusing on the US of A, not because I don’t love all the other lovely countries in the world, but mostly because it was developed and will probably be funded by institutions in the US, we have a tremendous wildfire problem in California, we have expansive land borders to the north and south, and we can raise awareness among non-conservation minded Americans to protects our national forests for the sake of safety.

On a side note, I think a great sound for this project would be the Devo song, ‘Beautiful World’. I can’t find the original video but in the meantime I found this which is even more amazing. Devo performing Whip It, 1980.

I heart stencils

Is it just me or is stencil lettering everywhere? Stencil letters, or any stencil art for that matter, takes us back to a time when everything was done by hand. There is a nostalgic quality, but stencil art also creates a rebellious and even dangerous aesthetic, as Steven Heller asserts in this article. The history of stencil art has a few chapters on street graffiti, and could represent lawlessness and sketchy neighborhoods that you wouldn’t want to walk around in the dark. Here is an example of a really cool stencil I found walking around in Soho the other day.

 
I appreciate the tactile quality of street art – the crumbling side of the building is the format, then there are layers of wheatpaste, stencil, or scrawling spraypaint. Especially in New York, the layers upon layers of art are fascinating. Sometimes things are partly peeled off to reveal an interesting layer underneath. 
I will share a secret about myself – in junior high school a few of my friends and I created tags for ourselves. I will try to recreate it and post it up here – I think I thought graffiti art was cool even back then. 
Another interesting aspect of street art is the lack of respect for the institution on which the art is sprayed, and the passersby that have no choice but to absorb the artists message. There is inherently an anti-corporate message in anything hand-altered at street level. There are the obvious examples of folks vandalizing actual advertisements and the indirect message above, but then there are the subtle messages like Banksy’s amazing political art.

‘There is always hope’

On a side note, I also picked up some cute stencil books on our recent trip to Scotland. One was all different types of horses and another was mythical creatures. They are fun to create basic artwork fast and especially cool when working with layers of color.

Hmm tree power…

After checking in on the Kurzweil AI site regularly this past week, today a news item popped up that grabbed my attention: Electrical Circuit runs entirely off power in trees. This topic has a lot of potential. I should explain what I’m looking for – our semester long project is to create a brand platform for a surprising future technology. By jove I think I’ve got it!

I’m going to take this one and run with it. Apparently trees give off some type of signaling similar to humans, and this provides the electrical current that these MIT scientists are harnessing. I think the following will be the quote from which I will try to create a concise and catchy brand platform: ‘Tree power is unlikely to replace solar power for most applications, Parviz admits. But the system could provide a low-cost option for powering tree sensors that might be used to detect environmental conditions or forest fires. The electronic output could also be used to gauge a tree’s health.’

‘The sensor system produces enough electricity to allow the trees’ temperature and humidity sensors to regularly and wirelessly transmit signals. Each signal hops from one sensor to another, until it reaches an existing weather station that beams the data by satellite to a forestry command center.’ Graphic / Rebecca Macri

My theme could be something like: ‘Harnessing tree power will provide valuable information on forest activity, including preventing forest fires.’ Other information could be related to the tree’s health, environmental conditions in the area, and US border activity such as smuggling radioactive material.

Something very promising about these developments is that trees would be considered valuable for national security, and therefore more protected. It’s possible that older, larger trees contain more electrical activity than younger, slimmer trees. If there were any opportunity to prevent further deforestation of old growth forest, this is the chance! Anything that increases the safety of Americans will attract people in hordes to the cause.

Human-Centered Design

 The human-centered design toolkit from IDEO (and the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation) has been downloaded 8500 + times from their site here. Including my own personal download. What an incredible document, created from a wealth of experience in the field and determining the best practices for achieving successful outcomes when working with different cultures.

And the design – user-friendly and efficient at the same time. Genius! This is an excerpt from one of the tips from the field guide:

‘Putting yourself in someone’s shoes enables you to get beyond what people say to what they think and feel. Being in-context means gaining true empathy through being with people in their real settings and doing the things they normally do. This kind of deep immersion gives us Informed Intuition that we take back with us to design solutions. We begin to take on the perspective of the interview participant which enables us to make design decisions with their perspective in mind.’

See more of what the folks at IDEO are doing here.

Sitting on a ticking time bomb

I was reading the Pantopicon blog, and this post made me stop and think: what direction is our world really going in? Humans could go in one of two directions: on one hand, there’s a resurgence of back-to-nature practices like yoga, local and organic food, crafting and the popularity of handmade elements in art and design. On the other hand, the rise in social networking sites is breathtaking. But you have to wonder as sites like Facebook, Twitter and others keep folks glued to their computers – are social networking sites actually anti-social? There’s an element of voyeurism, where you can scroll through people’s pictures, see their friends and ‘status’ without ever picking up the phone to catch up!

My husband and I are more of the pick-up-the-phone type people, and ‘hey, want to get a cocktail’ type people. But in the last year we gave in to the Facebook pull, charmed by the ease of keeping in touch and reconnecting with so many ‘faces’. I love Facebook, I must say. In terms of marketing, businesses either join FB, tweet and blog or miss out on lots of customers.

The problem with this trend is the decline of outdoor activity. According to The Nature Conservancy, visits to National Parks are down. Less time in nature means people are less aware of the value it adds to their lives, and they are less likely to protect it. I don’t know which direction the world will go, and like the sociologists suggest on the Pantopicon blog post, if half the population goes in one direction and the other half in another, we could be facing a huge problem, much like sitting on a ticking time bomb.

My solution: I’m going to visit my nearest national park. I just have to figure out where that is ….

(this photo is from a trip to the Scottish highlands)

Good Advice from …

Practice noticing stuff and telling stories. Steve Portigal tells us what we all should know, but is still a challenge. I have for so long wanted to have a blog of everyday observations of life in New York City. I mean, here we are in this place that for many people around the world has daily artifacts of an urban metropolis crackling with possiblility.

I love his advice: “Your log doesn’t need to be conclusive, you just need to be observant and tell people what you think, wonder, or imagine.” This is freedom from being too smart, funny, or witty (which most of the time I am not). Just some everyday observations…

Loyal to the Prius

The CARS program was a government-run solution to get polluting cars off the road by providing credit for the trade-in of ‘clunkers’ towards the purchase of smaller, more fuel-efficient vehicles. In Tim Brown of IDEO’s blog, he posts an image of a Toyota dealership inundated with ‘clunkers’. The majority of these inefficient, oversized vehicles are American-made – specifically Ford, GM and Chrysler. Brown asserts that this image underlines just how poorly the US auto industry has been run for years. 

The reason that the government didn’t support the US auto industry during the program is that most ‘clunkers’ are American cars, and most fuel-efficient vehicles are foreign. I would like to support ‘made in USA’ whenever possible, but until our domestic car companies make sustainability a priority, I’m afraid they just can’t compete. Most Americans drive their cars every day, and these cars have not only drained our pockets but they have contributed to global warming.

American car manufacturers need to take the lead in innovating new viable solutions, and more importantly  people could stop investing unneccesary amounts of their income to pay for gas, and demand greater fuel efficiency for their daily commute.