June 30, 2010, 6:33 am : Cannes, AdAge – Cannes picks and full interview

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The image above is the edit of my (obviously too long) Cannes picks interview for Advertising Age, which was a very big honour for me and good fun to write as well. Below is my full interview, complete with references to the X-Men and of course, Berkeley the Dog. Oh, and some cool advertising too.

Cannes Picks for Cyber 2010 – Tom Eslinger

I’m looking forward to Cannes this year with a mix of anticipation and fear. Anticipation of fthe shoot-outs in Cyber and fear  of the extinction-level magnetic field that will be caused by all that smartphone blog-tweet-share-apping in one place. It will be the magnitude of the one that Magneto used on Wolverine in the battle at the end of Ultimatum, and we all know how that turned out, right?

1.What campaign is likely to do well at Cannes, and why?
My Cannes experience has been on Cyber and Titanium juries, so I have goggles set on simple, connecting and WOW! Ideas like Monopoly on played out on Google Maps, the Boone Oakley site, IKEA Showroom and cool augmented stuff like BMW Z4 all have those qualities. When I first served on Cannes juries, anything from Absolut and Nike seemed to be pre-printed in the shortlists. Now, Uniqlo looks to be taking over the Absolut spot with consistent work like Calendar and Lucky Switch. Personally, my fingers are crossed for Saatchi LA’s Sponsafier and 3G Prius work – GO TEAM!

2.What’s the best use of social media you’ve seen in the last year?
I really like Nokia’s World’s Biggest Signpost (no more Farfar, sniffle) because it was simple and happened in the real world, making ripples through relevant media online and mobile – and was way weird and wonderful. I love We Choose The Moon, which made Twitter feel warm and immediate and re-awakened inner little kids all over the world. My dog Berkeley got his head stuck in a mini-Pringles can as a puppy, so he is organizing a block-vote for Pringles’ Oversharers. Ikea Showroom and Uniqlo stuff will no doubt be magnetic in one of the juries.

3.Which region or country most impresses you right now, and why?
I’ve been lucky enough to have spent time in China over the last few years and have watched the work move rapidly into multi-layered ideas like recent stuff from there for adidas and our  Beijing office’s work for HP. Years ago, I yabbered on and on about how mobile from Asia was going to blow people’s minds but surprisingly I’m still waiting for the jaw-and-phone-dropping work to match the gnarly hardware.

4.What would you like to see less –or none–of next year–what needs to be retired?
The simple answer is technical tricks posing as ideas. The challenge is to pick out the hits from all that random noise that’s blasting out at full volume. I can only imagine how many smartphone apps, Twitter-y things and AR one-hit wonders are lined up in the judging jukebox waiting for a spin.

On my watch as President of Cyber we collectively focused on the ideas that cut-through, not the fancy technical tricks. We pulled out Dove, Nike iD and The Heidis, which all went on to kill across the board – should have moved Cyber to Saturday night.  I’m hoping that the juries will apply similar filters, because in a short time, the delivery mediums in this space have matured and are now rabidly loved.

5. What was the most exciting work you saw from your country/region in the past year?
Essentially, I work everywhere we have an office, so unless I get some free gear from Uniqlo and Nokia, I’ve reached my plug-limit!

6. What were the biggest challenges you faced in the last year within your particular country/region when it came to doing great creative work?
Wherever you are,  the challenge when you work neck-deep in “digital stuff” is to find your place in the overall process and to spread the way you think into every bit of the core idea. I tell people it doesn’t matter whether you are first or last in the presentation to the client, you have to be in there all the way along. Screens are the connective tissue in our work now and our job is to hook ‘em all together. The challenge is getting our teams and clients to see us all, regardless of how we self-identify – media, agency, all of the pieces in the puzzle – as an ecosystem around their brand’s ideas – one can’t (and mustn’t) exist without the others.

December 4, 2009, 6:29 am : Fools on the (Primrose) Hill

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Sunday in Primrose Hill….oh, ya gotta love London and a cute dog…

The Dawgz!

October 30, 2009, 9:01 am : Trick or Treat at 80 Charlotte St

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Berkeley has just finished trick or treat at Saatchi London. Here he is preparing to get a treat (his trick was ‘Sit’, in case you were wondering…)

October 21, 2009, 10:49 am : Pony Rides with Arthur and Berkeley and MY HOW YOU’VE GROWN!

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Berkeley has a new pal, Arthur. Arthur lives on the back of the couch and Berkeley has decided that he wants to live up there too.This is them on their way to the local rodeo in St John’s Wood…

Arthur is also being used as a size comparison for how fast he is growing. Check this out: The most recent photo of Arthur and Berkeley together (19 Oct 2009) is below…

This is the first pic of them together 3 weeks ago (below)…yikes…he’ll be about 8 feet tall at this rate

October 8, 2009, 9:06 am : Halloween Costume Fitting 2009

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This is the first fitting of Berkeley’s pirate costume. He held still for exactly 1 minute.

He then walked calmly over to his rug and started to eat the hat, starting with the neck strap…I wonder how he’ll like the lobster costume, coming soon…

Later, back to ‘butter won’t melt in my mouth’ pose….

September 28, 2009, 11:12 am : Have a New Doggie!

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This is the new little man around the house – his name is Berkeley Jackson, born June 26 and came to live in St John’s Wood Sept 1. His interests include biting, the ‘zoomies’ and learning sit, lie down and NO! In fact, he thinks that his name is NO, with ‘OUCH’ being a close second. We’re teaching him to do laundry as well so he has something to do while watching soaps and eating bon bons….More pics to come.

August 23, 2008, 7:40 am : Reading Festival | Day 1 & 2

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Day 2, August 23 | An exciting, long, ankle-withering day on the dirt. Started with Santogold, who I missed at Coachella – she was great, really good 80s-styled fun, then dove into Fight Like Apes, Louis XIV, The Audition, White Lies, Foals, Justice, Attack! Attack!, with a wee bit of Raconteurs (dull) and We Are Scientists (still struggling with them) before a big plate of spicy wedges and the Killers. The Reading Council has a very strict noise ban, so the Killers were just a little louder than the AM radio we had in our Toyota Corolla when I was 12. The incredibly drunk and tone-deaf dudes surrounding us were louder than the band, which came out and did note-perfect versions of all the hits. The best bit was ‘When You Were Young’ and ‘All these things that I’ve done’, with extra added ticker-tape! I sent a txt to a short-code on a poster which shouted ‘Exclusive Killers New Album Preview’. A few seconds later I got a return txt from ‘The Killers’ and from the message I’m assuming that their new album is called ‘Stay tuned for more previews and updates’, since that is all that was in the message. When are bands who live and die by interacting with their fans going to learn that the deeper and more personal connection they make with me, the more I’m going to love them? In the Killers’ case, that day is still to come. Maybe I should send them a return txt and let them know that I’d be happy to help them out? As we were leaving the rain started to sprinkle down, now turning into a steady pour. Off to put on my Wellington boots and hit the last day of the Reading Festival for 2008.

Day 1, August 22 |
I feel like I am still in Day 1 mode, since we arrived less than 24 hours ago from London. Straight into the bands after a quick bag drop. Saw MGMT, Vampire Weekend, QOTSA, Wombats, Babyshambles, a bit of the Fratellis and Dan Le Sac v. Scroobius Pip. Highlight so far has been Babyshambles, not really a fan, but it was the best act on at same time as Rage Against the Machine. I saw Rage at Coachella last year and they still haven’t made any new music! I half expected Pete Doherty to come out late, puke and faint but I am obviously reading too many tabloids since coming to London. The band was tight, sounded great and was fun to watch, especially since the tent was half full! Scrambled over to catch the end of Dan Le Sac, which was intimate (eg: Half Full) and loads of fun, when not being drowned out by Rage on the main stage. On my way over for Day 2, will post pics and more typing tomorrow. Onward!

August 2, 2008, 2:14 am : Lollapalooza 2008 | Friday Aug, Saturday Aug 2, Sunday Aug 3

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Day 3| Sunday Aug 3
Sunday cooled off considerably, to the point of being pleasant and breezy, rather than a death-march from one stage to the next in the blazing heat. The highlights of the last day of Lollapalooza were certainly later in the day for me: Girl Talk rocked the place – a skinny white dude in knee-high socks, satin shorts and a tank top blasting a mashed-up rocking set with the biggest worked-up crowd I’d seen at one of the side-stages. I’ve posted a funny clip of a girl who climbed a tree and spent the entire hour-long set bouncing on, or humping the tree, depending on what music Girl Talk was blasting.
Of course, my highlight of the day was Nine Inch Nails. I had a break position to view (right by the soundbooth), the night got dark a little early with the clouds and Trent Reznor and co played new stuff and instrumentals the first half and then beat the living snot out of the crowd the second half. I really dig the digital effects and faux interactivity of their set, with LED videos interacting with the movement of the band, especially when Trent ‘played drums’ on a giant screen. This is where I hope outdoor performance goes, and as usual NIN are leading the way and finally getting recognised for it. On the advertising side, winning Gold at Cannes this year for the promotional work for Year Zero will hopefully encourage more performers to hire companies like 42 Entertainment to bring some fresh, weird thinking to the way you package and promote music business. The last batch of pics (ahhhhhhh….sniffle) are here.

Day 2| Saturday Aug 2
The heat has pulled back slightly, a nice wind coming off the Lake and some decent bands on today. Highlights have been The Gutter Twins. I wasn’t a big Afghan Wigs or Screaming Trees fan, but Gutter Twins were really rocking and looked great too. Mark Lanegan must have had his hands glued to the mike stand – I’m pretty sure he didn’t move once during the show. After a quick detour to check out the Barney’s Co-Op sale and the Jeff Koons show (both were pretty spectacular in their own way…), I caught Foals, Devotchka, Toadies and then did the mad dash between Rage Against the Machine and Wilco. I should have just gone to Wilco and stayed – the Rage crowd was full of dudes my age, off the leash for the night, getting very aggressive and hammered. Not that I have anything against aggression and beer – just not at a tribute show! I saw Rage last year at Coachella and they STILL haven’t put out a new record. I ask, are they sticking it to the MAN, or their FANS? By the time I got to Wilco, they must have played War on War (fave Wilco tune) or left it out of the set (hopefully the latter). Jeff Tweedy and Co. had on amazing cowboy-style Nudie suits, which were great fun, just like Wilco. It was an on-form set and I shot about 5 mins of video of them performing a work in progress tune. New pics from the day uploaded here, including lotsa random crowd shots. Watch for the idiot buying a hash pipe with about 5 people taking his picture.

Day 1| Friday Aug 1
The First day of any festival can be a mixed bag if it is on a Friday. People arriving, lots of folks at work and lots of new bands (or struggling old ones) on the bill. This is easily the best Friday I’ve had in ages, with a few discoveries like Free Sol, Holy F*ck, Louis XIV putting rocking sets to crowds still small enough to get right to the front (and roast in 90 degree + heat). I check out the know bands I know I’m supposed to like (but haven’t bothered beyond a couple of songs) like Grizzly Bear, Mates of State, The Kills and Black Keys. I stood through Bloc Party (who seemed either nervous or bored, probably both) and then got the wind knocked out of me by Radiohead. To quote the first band I saw today, HOLY FUCK! I haven’t seen them for ages and they were a blast, especially the sun set, their groovy planet-friendly lights (mostly LEDs) and they rocked the crap out of the place for 2 hours! I’ve seen alot of rock show, with some pretty spectacular staging, but the one of the most wonderful has got to be a warm night, surrounded by some groovy not-too-wasted people, listening to ‘Everything in its right place’ and ‘Fake Plastic Trees’ back to back, with a spectacular fireworks show out over the Lake. The crowd was so quiet that Thom Yorke asked if we were still out there. I’ve loaded a clip into YouTube, which doesn’t do it justice, but captures a little moment that touched my heart, right through my extremely sweaty shrt. Made it back to hotel, rode up in the elevator with the drummer from the Raconteurs. I didn’t want to say something dumb cuz I skipped their set to see Bloc Party, which was a dumb move. It did get me an awesome spot surrounded by short people for Radiohead, but I thought that whole story might take longer than six floors, so I just said ‘Hey’. He said ‘Hey’, back. Lots of other muso types lurking around and looking skinny and cool. It is pretty easy to tell them apart – we the normal people are the ones with the sweaty shirts and sunburn (that would be me) and the rockers are the ones who don’t sweat and smoke like a MF! Photos from Day 1 are here.

July 27, 2008, 5:16 pm : Armageddon It!! (Right after this nap…)

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This appeared in the Guardian this morning. I thought about buying every copy in London in case someone saw my prairie shame, but then thought ‘Shucks! We NoDaks have a sense of humor. We were in Fargo for like, 5 minutes, and that was funny, right??”

Here is a treat for my friends, co-workers and all the folks who have heard (and probably not believed) my stories about growing up in North Dakota. The place where my grandparents toiled our farm just seconds from massive nuclear missiles. Where my friends and I drank beer in the back of a pick-up truck and watched B-52 bombers fly over us. For you, my pals, I submit this article for a chuckle. Or a gasp of horror. Or Both. Enjoy!

April 26, 2008, 2:26 pm : It’s officially summer….Coachella Festival 2008

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Day 2 & 3 | Saturday and Sunday April 26, 27

Sunday
This was interesting as most folks were there to see the three-legged dog, er, Roger Waters, not groovers like Does it offend you, yeah (awesome) and Simian Mobile Disco (ears still ringing). RW did the complete Dark Side of the Moon, as well as some other Floyd and solo things (like his solo smash ‘BEER RUN’). Although not a huge fan, it was definitely the show with the best stage effects (inflatable pigs, great films) and enough pyrotechnics that I was wondering how he got permission in the middle of a brush desert during a water shortage. I enjoyed how mellow the day was (I think that everyone but me was pretty stoned by the time RW came on) and sat back and enjoyed the heat and the really fun set from Love and Rockets.
But, all good things must come to an end and after a whirlwind book shopping trip on Monday morning, back on the plane and back to work Tuesday morning. Next up, Isle of Wight Festival – stay tuned!

Saturday
The day started in a very very cool way. Saw MGMT and got so close that when they jumped off stage, they ran right past me and geez, they were so little! Massive big day: Kraftwerk, Portishead and Prince! Kraftwerk was amazing, as usual and I was praying for a new song to come blasting out of the speakers, but no, still waiting….Portishead, on the other hand, over-delivered. I loved Dummy when it first came out, but then it became the power source that seemed to run every cafe, dinner party and hairdresser in the universe. The second record didn’t do it for me and to tell the truth, I forgot that they even broke up. I went along to get a good place for Prince and was knocked out by the new record, their groovy visuals and the scary, big sound they had live. Actually spent money and bought the record – highly recommended. Prince came out (late as usual), but it wasn’t really Prince, it was Prince era 1985, with Morris and Jerome and Sheila E. playing first, with Prince as ringleader and guitarist. After a few jams, he got into the hits and started knocking them off, playing so long that I was waiting for the Coachella Valley cops to come and throw us out. Prince came out for one more jam at the end (which I heard from the parking lot) as I drove off in my ugly blue Jetta into the desert night, thinking of living in Minneapolis and seeing Prince playing piano at the Loon Cafe…ahhhh

Day 1 | Friday April 25
Well, I waited and waited and waited and I’m here. Coachella is my indication that winter is over. Some people look for the bulbs to bloom, I wait for a plastic wrist band ticket-thingie, a beer and a massive sunburn to tell me that winter hibernation is over and it is now, my friends, time to rock. When I first started coming here to the Coachella Valley (and staying in Palm Springs CA), the festival was only two days, so having an extra day of music is a treat. Like most 3-dayers, the up and comers (or terribly dull) bands are on the first day, which kept the crowd light in the afternoon, with most folks showing up post-work time. Each year I feel older and older and much more self-conscious of being called ‘sir’ when someone apologises for slamming into me in the pit at front of the stage, but as my friend Jim says “at least we still dress kind of cool and know how to dance”, which makes me feel a little better.
I love to check out what people are wearing and this year they seem to be in Noah’s Ark-style sets – 2 hippie girls, 2 dudes with wide gangbanger-style headbands and the accessory to have appears to be big David Bowie-ala-The Man Who Fell To Earth-meets-Fallon-from-Dynasty-styled sunglasses, the bigger and cheesier the better. American Apparel also has lots to answer for. Their ad campaigns have spawned roaming hoards at Coachella dressed like they just left 3rd hour gym class on their way to a porn movie audition. I love to listen in on conversations here and there, but the main thing I love it finding a new favourite band or seeing one that I really love live for the first time. So here they are:
New fave: Cut Copy, Spank Rock
Old fave live first time: The Breeders, Goldfrapp, Aphex Twin
Disappointments: Vampire Weekend (who made me think of Haircut 100), the dorky guy from the movie Sing and the Verve
The biggest treat of the day was a tie between Breeders (who were fun and cool and had the awesome drummer) and Goldfrapp, who were just plain awesome. The sound mix was shit for most of Goldfrapp and Ms Goldfrapp was obviously having problems hearing herself, from the mad gesticulations combining pointing at her throat, making a talking-gesture with her hand and then scowling and pointing upward. I think that the sound guy is probably buried in a shallow grave somewhere out in the desert by now…
Left after one Jack Johnson tune (JJ falls into my terribly dull column), grabbed some cool shirts and hit the road. Day Two tomorrow!

March 28, 2008, 10:48 pm : AdFest Cyber Jury – Running from dogs, Condoms & Cabbages, Panels and Metal

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Since my first couple of days here, the jury and time has flown past. I’ve been getting up early (for me – 530am) and running around the neighbourhoods which surround the hotel. It has been a great way to let off steam – literally – since the reaction between the freezing air-con and my intolerance to humidity makes me look like a human dim sum when I ran back into the hotel. Which I had to do yesterday, when I took a wrong turn and ended up in a construction site, with four nasty looking dogs growling and circling me. I remembered some episode of some show where you need to stand your ground and forcefully use your voice to take command. Which I tried, and it worked right up until I got to the edge of the gate and a couple of the dogs thought ‘Hey he’s trying that TV show trick – GET HIM’. I was far and fast enough to make it to a 7-11 and park for a few minutes, like a 24-hour American Embassy that hands out 42-oz Slurpees to asylum seekers.

I felt like I needed a run today – had a huge meal at a cool restaurant called Condoms and Cabbages, right on the water and great company from Paul and Richard from Contagious Magazine. Funny to be hanging out with the guys far from our London base, really the only time when we aren’t running around. The meal was my wind-down from the Judge’s Panel Discussion, which was good, but not firey enough for my taste. I tried to prod and poke at some of the selections, since it seemed like everything from outdoor to press to direct was in the Cyber category as well. I have been thinking all week how awards shows are getting more complicated, categories aren’t always keeping up with the industry and consumer behavour changes. I know great work isn’t getting recognised because of fine print in the call for entries. I expected to see some break-out work in mobile while here at AdFest and found some interesting stuff, but not the edgy stuff that I read out in Contagious or fubiz We need to stimulate the groovy little shops that are making the cutting edge stuff, as well as making it possible for the big brands to innovate, without categories for media and discipline getting in the way, confusing and discouraging entrants. I’ve worked with Adfest, Cannes, Clio, One Show, Axis (NZ) and AWARD (Aus) to tweek their categories, and will continue to push wherever I can to get shows to pay attention to the marketplace and technology to keep festivals fresh and encourage more creatives to drag out the great work. OK, off the soapbox. Here’s the final entries from my Cyber Lotus Jury blog.

Day Two – AdFest Cyber Lotus Jury
Yesterday was the push to the finish line on the Cyber Lotus jury here at ADFEST, which means that all heads were down for five hours solid from early morning. There was lots of checking and double checking banners, sites, mobile, games and virals to make sure that our first, fast impressions on day one were correct. After a short break in the afternoon, we had a short list. And it was short indeed. The jury has been diligent, stuck the bar up high and judged the work at that level. Some might even say tough, but in a good way. I would argue that when you put people like this jury together to evaluate interactive work, they come from a background that has lived and breathed interactive thinking their whole lives. This jury knows what to look for, they see lots of great work all the time because of who they are and what they do all day long and they know a techie trick from a great idea. After a round of working through the shortlist and rescuing a few gems that got missed in round one, we voted a finalists list and broke for the day. The work that has come through to the end feels right and tomorrow is the last day. That’s when the metal gets decided and the hard work of ADFEST finishes for the Cyber Lotus Jury for 2008.

Final day of Cyber Lotus Jury: This morning we started with a clear brief of how to vote for metal, how many we can award per category and how to break the inevitable ties. Having three stints on Cannes juries under my belt, I knew that a clear brief from the organizer at the top of the day gives everyone an equal chance to question and probe the fine print in the rule book. It also saves the jury President a lot of repetition and revotes. Then we grabbed our finalist list and hit the mouses for the last time at ADFEST. After some debate, a few (short) re-votes, a list ditch attempt to rescue a lost gem from the shortlist and a call to Jimmy Lam to qualify a vague bit in the rules, we voted for Best of Cyber Lotus from our Gold winners. And we had tie! I then asked the jury to defend their choices to sway the tie breaking juror – it was like being on the high school debate team, but with credit cards. The next round of voting for Best of Cyber Lotus saw a clear result, in fact more than one mind was changed. And then, it was over. I thanked this great crew for being smart, great and picky and finding the best work. We all exchanged business cards, thanked our team that looked after us and went off to work, watch Festival speakers, lay in the sun or just stop. Which is what I am doing right now. See you on Saturday for the results.

March 25, 2008, 8:25 pm : AdFest Cyber Jury – Another Day as President in Paradise :-)

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Day One – AdFest Cyber Lotus Jury

I’m writing a daily blog for Marketing Magazine Hong Kong. Here is the first shot, cranked out last night from the balcony of my room at Royal Cliff Resort in Pattaya.

Last night at dinner, I realized that I could feel my fingers again, which meant that I must be away from the recent cold snap in London. Sitting in a pair of shorts and jandals, sipping a cold beer with some Aussie workmates, I started thinking about how lucky I am to be able to escape once in awhile, go to an exotic place and sit indoors clicking ‘yes, no or abstain’ for four days. Believe me, I’m not complaining, especially when the awards show is a cool one (ADFEST) in a cool place (Pattaya).

Jimmy Lam from ADFEST asked me to be President of the Cyber Lotus jury last year, not long after hanging up by nametag as Cyber Lions Jury President at Cannes. It’s an honour, and one that I have been keen to start ever since. I’ve been spending more and more time in this part of the world, with our new interactive folks spreading throughout our offices in Singapore and across China. I love the people, places, food, the work and especially the attitude – very ‘nothing is impossible’, which is close to my heart.

It was great to see a familiar face when I arrived – Hye-Kyoung Kim and I were on the Cannes Lions Cyber Jury together last year. All of the jury, which includes Johan Vakidis, Valerie Cheng, Shaun Branagan, Yasuharu Sasaki and Hiroo Kida, are smart, talented, well-awarded, cool people. We’re all keen to get into the work.

Today started the same way all juries start – a little talking, a little housekeeping and a lot of clicking. I asked the jury to look for great ideas matched with great technology and an understanding of the medium. I asked them to remember that we are representing ADFEST, as well as ourselves and that we need to set the bar high and find the work that gets up to our standards. And have some fun along the way.

After viewing100s of entries, we knocked off after eight straight hours of tapping, tapping and more tapping. Sitting now on the balcony of my room, looking out over the water at some twinkling boats, I continue tapping and anticipate where we’ll be this time tomorrow: a shortlist of the best work in the ADFEST Cyber Lotus category in one hand,  hopefully a cold beer in the other hand, with two big days ahead, continuing to sort the good ideas from the Great Ideas.

February 17, 2008, 3:20 pm : (sort of) Unplugged

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I’ve just returned home to London from a vacation in my beloved New Zealand. I moved to New Zealand two days after graduating from the Minneapolis College of Art and Design in May 1990. I had never been further west than Kailua, Oahu and that, being from North Dakota, was really the edge of the world. New Zealand was such a far-flung idea, let alone place, that I remember the day that I closed my bank account and the teller asking me how long it took to drive to New Zealand. I actually had to think for a second. This was before the internet, Google Maps and blogs had closed the distance between us all. I knew where New Zealand was, mainly because Split Enz and the Chills had been favourite bands in my late teens and I poured over geography books to find exotic sounding places like Auckland (the ‘Enz) and Dunedin (Chills). I had a mixtape on my Walkman of NZ bands when I took off for Wanganui, New Zealand and my new teaching job, setting up NZ’s first Degree Programmes in Computer Graphic Design. This was before we had courses in ‘interactive design’, Macromedia Director was still in diapers, Digital Darkroom was how we retouchd our scans and Hypercard still ruled when it came to clicking on-screen designs.

The Degree Programme became one of the first in the world to incorporate digital video, design, interactivity, art and design history and typography into a single curriculum and we had a blast: we were only a few years older than our students and when we weren’t pretending to know what we were doing, we kept ourselves occupied with our ideas and lots of cool computers, software and people to play with them. The staff collaborated with each other and our students, we invited David Carson to speak at a conference (and then had to make the conference!), we made groovy films, designed fonts for RayGun magazine and had a blast in a small town in the middle of nowhere on an island at the end of the world. This is where I worked with young, smart people from CalArts, MCAD, RISD, Cranbrook and the Royal College of Art.

It is where I sent my first portfolio work to Saatchi & Saatchi (they had the biggest ad in the Yellow Pages) and started freelancing and working for an Auckland design company, eventually joining Saatchi Wellington to build the interactive team within the creative and strategy disciplines. For the 15 years that I lived on-and-off in New Zealand, I fell for the place: the semi-active volcanoes that I ‘boarded all winter, the cool beaches, vineyards, rugged coastlines and groovy, laid back people. But the place that captured my heart and imagination the most is an island off the coast of the Coromandel Peninsula called Great Barrier Island. We came out here for the first time 5 years ago during Easter holidays, when it was pretty wet and muddy – didn’t matter one bit – this place is magical. I have to admit, I hadn’t prepared for the trip that well – it looked like a very cool, out of the way place where I wouldn’t have web access and mobile coverage was spotty at best. And that was where I stopped reading the website… The first night was a deep and peaceful, with waves lapping near the edge of the path and a million stars to light our way back from the pub. This was handy, as I failed to read that there is no mains power on Great Barrier Island and you need take a flashlight with you on your evening stroll. Everything here runs on diesel generators or solar power, which means that you are in a very environment-friendly place, which also has bird and plant life which you can’t find on the main islands any longer. A little gem on the edge of the Pacific Ocean, where we now have a home (named ‘Molesworth’s’ after a beloved teddy bear) snuggled up on a hill overlooking Shoal Bay at Mulberry Grove Beach.

When I tell folks what Great Barrier Island is like, I get a mix of looks ranging from ‘that sounds ideal’ to ‘what do you mean you don’t have a car and a TV?!?’ I go with the sounds ideal part of things. Here’s my survival guide for a web-aholic, mobile-obsessed creative-type who needs to make the big break from the Matrix and get offline in the closest thing to Jurassic Park you’re likely to see anytime soon:

Here Comes the Sun
When we bought our place, I came out to move in the furniture and set it up for our renters. Being a towny, the first thing I did was plug-in my charger for my mobile. Then, the lights dipped a little and the place went black. Our house wasn’t on 230v and my mobile charger had sucked our solar batteries dry. After a scary Blair Witch Project-meets-Camp Crystal Lake-night of unpacking boxes in the rain by the light of a couple candles, the decision to sort out the power was done. High-density batteries and additional solar panels installed were December 2007, packing in enough juice to power a couple of laptops, stereo, lights and yes, mobile phone chargers. This has makes it a functioning studio with the ocean 300 feet away, ready to go to work (or not…)

Find the Secret Hotspot
Mobile coverage is spotty on the island, but over a few days I noticed that there were several rental cars parked near the entrance of a scenic walk. I pulled my bike down the trail and my Blackberry buzzed, chirped and begged to be poked and prodded. When I reached the end of the trail, I found a spectacular view and two guys pecking away at their mobiles. It was a sad, but funny scene: we’d found a place where the GSM connection and the view were beautiful, clean and plentiful. I snuck away daily to connect, until I was busted by my partner, who began visiting Te Hotspot as well.

Ride to the Hills
Since you are going mostly green, you might as well ditch the car, too. I have always loved my mountain bike and it gets heavy use when I’m on the island. The roads are narrow, there is a major hill every kilometer or so and paved surfaces frequently drop away. It’s the biggest, prettiest cross-trainer ever. When you sweat my way across the lower half of the island daily (from my house to Claris – 16 kilometers each way), you get your cardio with a tanning session thrown in free.

Bring yr *ahem* sketchbook
I think that I’ve found the office in the middle of nowhere solution: draw everything you are working on it your sketchbook, snap them with the camera in your mobile, write a few notes and go up to the Scenic HotSpot with your bike and an iced latte from the corner store and watch the clouds while you send your ideas, notes comments and art direction, digitsed up from pen and paper around the world. I work on my drawing skillz when I get out here. Aside from the obvious sharpening of the tools, I can do it under a shady tree, with all your computing and image making power tucked into your back pocket.

Enjoy the Silence
Really the main reason for going out here – it is, quite literally, OUT THERE. Since there is no mains power, you don’t even hear the buzzing of the street lights on your nightly stroll. The only times to make sure you have some groovy audio technical noise killer headphones is when the neighbours are running their ‘genny’, which I thought was some weird local custom until I figured out that Genny is short for Generator.

If you need some time out to get your creative batteries charged up (no pun intended), this eco-and-people friendly, solar powered paradise is perfect. In fact, here’s the sales pitch: if you want to book 3+ days at Molesworth’s, visit the site, let me know you saw the place from a link on my blog and we’ll give you a sweet discount. Visit Molesworth’s here.

January 19, 2008, 2:36 pm : Cool Gadgets (and Art) that Kills!!

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Dec 2007/ Jan 2008
During Christmas, I went home to Minot, North Dakota. I met up with an old friend who is a conspiracy nut who puts Spooky Moulder to shame. We nearly always have an uncomfortable moment when we do the ‘what’s going on with you? What are you looking at? Reading? Watching?’ catch-up. I’m usually digging some cool new media-thing (Right now, I’m loving portable, ink-jet printers with roller paintbrushes, connected to digital images via USB). This almost always ends up with my pal explaining how the thing that I am digging on will come to life, decide people are a bad thing to have around, begin organizing all the machines in the world, keep a few of us for slaves and then kill the rest.

This conversation reminded me of an art history class I took at Minneapolis College of Art and Design in the late 1980s. Professor Phil Larson was the curator of the Walker Art Center in the early 1970s. Not only did he know his late modern art inside out, he was also a very cool guy with a dry delivery and snazzy jackets. One day we were studying sculptures, in particular, one of my faves: Richard Serra. His art equally spooks and seduces me – I listen to his sculptures like they are sea shells and get really close, close enough to smell them, which gets some looks and scolds from security guards at MOMA. I had written about smelling Serras’ in a paper I had to present and later, Phil told us that getting close enough to smell a Serra was a dangerous thing. Years before, Phil was at the Walker when they were installing a Serra, standing next to a gallery worker who was there one second and flattened the next by Serra’s multi-ton artwork. My friends and I were bug-eyed and this began a Sophmore Year-long fascination with art that kills! My classmates and I spent many an evening discussing which artists were potentially the most dangerous, like the Legion of Doom as an all-star art movement. (I’ve always thought Josef Beuys had a murderous lard pile stashed away in Berlin). We would occasionally create a most-wanted poster featuring a fantasy FBI top ten with Serra usually in the Top Five. Damn, I want the pizza box that was drawn on….

Now, driving around Minot fuelled by large coffees from the only Starbucks in town, my friend and I jabbered about groovy technology and gadgets and where they might go next. We decided to give things two ratings out of 5. I gave them a rating for how it would bring cool big ideas to life. My pal took a slightly different tack. Here are a few we loved:

Tag! You’re IT (information technology): Subdermal implants which track people’s movements have been around for ages. I’m pretty keen on getting one that would discretely give me a signal (like a tingle) when I am in the vicinity of things that interest me. This would be especially cool if my tag could filter incoming info on-the-fly – I’d get a certain sensation when I’m near a comic store that has a book that I’m missing or boot bindings in my size from the Burton store. This would most certainly have to be entirely ‘wearer-controlled’ – I don’t want to get tingles from a 2-for-1 burger ad when I’m walking down Oxford St. This could be the Apple Xmas must-have in 2012: an intra-body multi-media unit, literally an iPod Nano, except they would have to call it the iMe. You heard it here first…
Cool gadget factor: 3.8 / Likelihood of being an alien tracking device programmed to enslave us: 4.6

Smell (the ad for) the Glove: First, I must disclose that I read comics. Lots of comics. If you do too, you know that 2006 was the Year of the Zombie (Marvel Zombies, Raise the Dead, etc). I predict that 2007 will be known as the Year of the NanoMachines (Mighty Avengers, Ultimates, etc). Recently, these micro-computer controlled mechanical wonders are used to fight crime or do villainous deeds. In my perfect world, we would use nanotechnology to create actual viral marketing: beer companies release a nano-machine virus that gives you the taste and smell of a cold beer, with an accompanying hallucination-like ‘vision’ tied to context-specific placement (for example, released during Memorial Day near beaches for barbecues). This would be the trickiest media placement of all time – how do you book which way the breeze will blow? – but I would love to experience my favourite brands this way, as long as they wear off and I don’t keep experiencing the smell of the Camper store for two weeks.
Cool gadget factor: 4.3 / Opportunity for nanomachines to take over our bodies and create a race of cyborgs: 4.0

Mobilility Advertising: no, I don’t mean mobile. I mean stuff that gets up and walks around. Yup, robots. Not the silly ones that they have at NextFest with rubber face masks stuck on weird-Saturn 3 styled chassis. More like the ones from Westworld, walking manifestations of brands. How cool would it be if we had Prada robots walking around Soho, Batman robots walking around outside movie theatres when Dark Knight comes out or swarms of bird robots that are movable wifi broadcast networks that roam around music festivals? Obviously, the problem comes back to when these suckers stop selling suits and start enslaving us to build massive computers to control the earth. My solution is make them cool, but not too smart, think an iPod wearing loafers, rather than The Computer Who Wore Tennis Shoes.
Cool gadget factor: 4.7 / Chance that we will eventually have to send someone back through time to undo all of the damage we’ve done 4.9

Augmented Everything: Everyone who knows me has seen my rant on augmented reality. This is because it appeals to the side of me that wants to make cool, gadget-activated stuff. I also have the hologram of Princess Leia pleading for help from Obi-Wan stuck in my head. Last year, we did a project with augmented reality through mobile phones for the Wellington Zoo in NZ. Through a series of press ads containing a black and white image code, you could view 3D images of animals when looking through your mobile phone camera (after downloading a small application). Although I love mobile augmented stuff, I really want augmented reality contact lenses, which make my entire world a giant canvas waiting to be activated through visual codes and image recognition. With the breakthroughs in flexible surfaces and printing hardware at a micro-level, I’m looking forward to creating (and seeing) ideas that are there, but not really. Like car demos which appear in 3D space when you see a car at the dealership. Or seeing a movie reviews appear when you look at a poster, changing each time you blink. This post came out while I was writing this – we’re not far away now. Check out circuit-printed contacts here.
Cool gadget factor: 5.0 / Chance that you will realize that all advertising in the world are actually coded messages from aliens 5.0.

This may have already happened. Don’t believe me, go watch John Carpenter’s They Live

If you’re still reading this rant, these are the things that get me jazzed up. Like reading comics in front of my laptop while checking out notcot with a movie on the TV while listening to music. Although most of this tech is either highly dodgy or too weird to present to a client, I want to always play at the edge of ‘what if?’, keeping an eye on the idea driving the technology, not the other way around. This is where I challenge myself and people I work with to always push a little harder for a ideas that kill. Don’t worry, I mean Killer Ideas, in a good way!

August 26, 2007, 2:59 pm : Reading Festival Rules!

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Well, my first festival in the UK was a blast and something that I have wanted to do since I was, well, younger than I am now. I have read about Reading (and had no clue either where is was or how it was pronounced). By the time I had my feet under the desk last week, it was far too late to get tickets. With a little scrounging around, I managed to get guest passes from EMI UK (cheers guys!!) and made it out to the Festival just in time for the sun to come crawling through the clouds after the last week(s) of grey, grey London days. Snagged our wristbands, giant beers in paper milk shake cups, a scheduled pulled from the wall of the PR tent and headed into the slightly muddy field! Go team!

Cold War Kids were first up, looked and sounded very very good and the crowd was into it. The show was good fun, except for the rather disturbing stoners standing in front of us, who brought an inflatable sex doll with them and spent most of CWK’s set punching and kicking the doll – scary to say the least. We moseyed over to see Maps, caught as little of Fall Out Boy as possible. I was wondering how they became so popular, when I looked down and this sad, odd message was scrawled on a pizza box. Maybe if you’re a guy and you text this phone number, you get a free pair of really small girls jeans and black guyliner….hopefully this isn’t some stalker trying to lure hapless young emo’s to a scary ‘Silence of the Lambs’-style pit in the basement….
We cruised back to the guest area, which was more like a holding pen for lots of people that didn’t want to get their shoes dirty. I did dig not having to line up for flat, keg beer, which made it the coolest high school party with credit cards ever! We gawked at Kelly Osbourne and a couple of Fall Out Boys and Hold Steady guys before heading back out to catch a little of LostProphets, who spent more time telling people to wave their hands and shout than they spent playing.
We scurried over to see Against Me!!! who were good fun and nice and thrashy. Then we had to get our act together – there were many over-priced nachos and warm beers to get into before running the gauntlet of the evening shows – we had 5 bands to see in 4 hours – requiring precision timetabling, beer balancing and drug-casualty-passed-out-on-the grass avoiding – deep breath…..

We lined up really early in the pit to get close to Nine Inch Nails, who ripped the place up – sounded and looked great and set the bar pretty high for the closers, Smashing Pumpkins. We had to hotfoot it across the grounds to make it to LCD Soundsystem, who luckily came on late so we caught ‘Us v. Them’, which is always good fun – this is the 5th LCD show I’ve seen this summer, all good fun but unfortunately all lacking ‘Losing My Edge’. Oh well, can’t have everything. After catching most of LCD’s set, we headed back up front to catch the headliners – on the main stage, Smashing Pumpkins and on the side stage, The Hold Steady.

Smashing Pumpkins started out dull and got more dull, hitting a little early stride by kicking into ‘Today’ and getting the crowd bouncing. It didn’t connect with us in the least, so we grabbed the last warm beers and a tub of fries to nibble while staking out a really good, close place for The Hold Steady. I saw them at Lollapalooza 3 weeks back and haven’t stopped listening to ‘Boys and Girls in America’, which it appears I was the last Minneapolitan to hear about. They are such good fun to listen to and watch live – a great ending to a long, hot, noisy, rocking day.

August 5, 2007, 8:00 pm : Lollapalooza – Day Three – Sunday

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Started the morning around 10am with a trip to the Art Institute of Chicago, which was a chunk of my art education when I was going to school in Minneapolis, making frequent trips for guest lectures and to check out the permanent collection. After visiting old pals René Magritte and the grarly Cy Twomblys’, I spent an hour or so in the Jeff Wall exhibition. Jeff Wall first knocked me out when I saw a small exhibition of his in Germany years back. This was a great, really moving show – I can never get over the amount of detail and emotion packed into these really large, densely populated images. This was a great break from the heat and sun. The Sunday bands were never going to get me jumping up and down – Amy Winehouse was OK, but came on late and had the stage manner of a bored flight attendant waiting for everyone to leave the plane sothey can get off their feet and go drink and have some fun – which is what was surely going through Mrs. Winehouses’ mind. I struggled for the next hour or so (Los Campesinos and the Annuals will hopefully not gain a following and take over the world…), until it was time to get ready for Iggy and The Stooges. Absolutely great fun – Iggy was funny one minute, scary the next. You would expect Scott Ashland behind the drums to be able to keep time by now – no such luck. The highlight was Iggy inviting about 100 fans from the audience to come up and dance during ‘No Fun’, which was great fun, especially since only the most hammered, horrible singers made it up onto the stage. I did a side trip to see a surprise mini-gig by Satellite Party (flog that horse, Mr. Farrell), then had a few beers before the double-header of Modest Mouse (modestly talented and modestly OK) and My Morning Jacket, who despite bringing the Chicago Youth Symphony and wearing matching tuxedos….they still sucked as bad as they did at Coachella.
Near the end of the day, I spotted a guy with a Lollapalooza t-shirt from 1992. The line-up on the back was Ministry, Ice Cube and the Peppers at the headlining spots and Pearl Jam second from bottom, just above Lush. I took this as a sign that it was a good time to split the show: cheese-balls like the Peppers still walk the Earth, Ice Cube is now ‘AmeriKKKa’s Most Wanted’ cornball kiddie movie actor, Ministry is off the radar and Pearl Jam is headlining Lollapalooza, 15 years later. I look up to the skyline of Chicago and the clouds behind the Sears tower have the outlined look of the women in the de Chirico painting I saw the the Art Institute this morning. I depart with a quick blast of TV on the Radio, who not only sound great but have the sort of vibe that sends me off on just the right note – all all good.

August 4, 2007, 9:05 pm : Lollapalooza – Day Two – Saturday!!!

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Saturday just wouldn’t be Saturday without a trip to the comic shop (sorry for cheating Golden Apple!). I pored over the new books (thank Christ for Geoff Johns and the JSA) and then headed to Lollapalooza to see I’m from Barcelona. They were described as being like Polyphonic Spree. And they were, except that they didn’t suck like Polyphonic Spree. Good fun, lots of people grooving on-stage (I think there were 14, but hard to tell from all the running around). Onto Tapes n Tapes, who, despite being from Minneapolis were either really flat or really bad – don’t know them well enough to tell. Left early for another trip north to Boystown and a late lunch. Back in time for another Minneapolis band (via NYC) – the Hold Steady. They have connections to some of my other fave old MPLS bands and I’d heard good things and they were fer sure true. I really enjoyed the vibe, the sound and the fact that they were really enjoying themselves (and I always have a thing for emo-styled dudes with dark hair and those thick black glasses…). Next onto Snow Patrol, who were far more rocking than their ‘Grey’s Anatomy’ hit single would give away. I was hoping that they would pull out their cover of John Lennon’s ‘Isolation’ from the Give Peace a Chance compilation for Darfur, but no such luck. A gracious funny front man with a band soaked in cool tunes – very nice. Running at full-tilt, I made it over to Spoon with only a few missed notes. I had never seen them and was loving it from beginning to end. I love ‘Don’t make me a target’ and it sounded fantastic live – really want to see Spoon in a proper theatre with a longer set and better sound. Finally, the big dilemna – Interpol or Muse. I had seen Muse briefly at Coachella, so made my way to see Interpol. They were rocking and the only bummer was the lighting which made a bunch of guys in black suits and night very very hard to make out. Luckily, they had the killer tunes and were great fun to watch. After seeing a little over half the show, I made another mad-dash to see the second half of Muses’ set, arriving just in time for my favourite tune ‘Starlight’ which was not only cool to hear that loud but even more fun with some seriously intense lights and graphics. Hit an after-party at the W until about 430am, so a slightly late-ish start is OK for the 3rd and final day on Sunday.

August 3, 2007, 5:24 pm : Lollapalooza – Day One

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Those of you that know me will know how much I love music festivals. Coachella is my old favourite, really kicking off the USA summer season and Lollapalooza, which is pointing toward the end of the summer (bummer). This year had a really interesting batch of bands, so I cashed-up some airmiles and spent the weekend in Chicago, soaking up the sun, sounds, beer and occasional spot of rain. Here’s the run-down for Day ONE:

Friday: First band up was The Fratellis, were very average, but can be forgiven because of the iPod-soundtracking ‘Chelsea Dagger’ . Well, possibly not. They didn’t look like all that thrilled to be there, thank Christ for Ghostland Observatory, my Lolla new favourite band and completely unexpected discovery. As I got close to the stage, I was thinking that this cool chick singer would be the kind of girl I’d go out with, then, to my relief it turned out to be a groovy guy in too-tight jeans with a voice like Geddy Lee and some very groovy moves. A little later, M.I.A. didn’t really do it for me, but I really want to hear the new tunes she’s putting out soon. Right before I take off for some food, I register for the TXT message services, promising exclusives and alerts. The return message looks like my Mom wrote it – perfect wording, no TXT-SPK and the whiff of a lawyers pen – will hold my cynicism til I see how this unfolds on my phone. This needs to have the coolest TXT and interactive experiences going – how more SISOMO can you get with music, big-ass video screens and sponsored by a phone company!?! Rock my world over the next 3 days – PLEASE!! After a break with some Mexican food and margharitas up in Boystown, I made it just in time for Satellite Party, Lollapalooza grand-papa Perry Farrell’s new band, which didn’t suck as bad as grumpy bloggers would like you to believe. With some Porno for Pyros and Jane’s thrown in (along with Farrell throwing back Jagermeister and Veuve Cliquot), another pleasant surprise. Then, for the 3rd time this year, I grooved on LCD Soundsystem, with about 10,000 other people, very different than seeing them at Coachella and at the El Rey in LA. Good good, fun with the same set-list (minus …NY you’re bringing me down…thank goodness). They played ‘Daft Punk’s Playing At My House’ which was pretty cool, because Daft Punk was playing at the stage right behind them directly after their set. Daft Punk, what can I say? I dig the tunes, the look and the robots schtick but I can never get past the fact that this is a couple of producers with a fuck-off tunes and light show. I’ve always been a little wary of them after I heard that it isn’t really the Daft Punk guys in the seriously expensive suits, just a couple of hired hands. I took off a little early, hit an after-show party and ticked off the shows for Saturday.

July 29, 2007, 2:09 pm : Interactive Spaces | Richard Serra in NYC

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Before my Vans had come out of the suitcase at the hotel in NYC, I had the copy of TIMEOUT NYC open, scanning the museums and galleries. Quickly I found an old favourite – Richard Serra. I studied at the Minneapolis College of Art and Design, with the Art Institute meters away from our studios, providing a free place to hang out and a constant source of inspiration. Across town, the equally inspirational (but not free) Walker Art Centre provided the more (ahem) new school work that I was drawn to, having found that Late Modern Art was the place on the Art History timeline that pulled on my heart and mind. I had a fantastic professor, Philip Larson, who was at one time curator of the Walker. Phil would tell great stories, the most notorious was that he had witnessed a gallery installation technician crushed by a Richard Serra work as it was being placed in the gallery. This sense of danger, along with the texture, mystery and scale of Serra’s work pulled me to sculpture gardens and exhibitions around the world. With rain clouds overhead, I made my way to MOMA and made my way directly to the Serra’s on level 6: I wasn’t in the mood for the simple beauty of the paintings and photos on levels 2-5 – I wanted to see something big, rusty and potentially lethal. That’s what I found in the entry way: Delineator (1974-75), two massive pieces of rolled steel, one on the floor, the other suspended 25 feet up, forming a giant plus (or a cross). You can stand in the middle of the piece, with the slab above, and feel a real energy from the people in the room watching you, as well as the scale and the thinking ‘where do you run if that sucker comes loose?’. I continued to be blown away by the pieces, leaning, hovering, standing around, undulating from the walls – carefully invading three-dimensional space, creating emotional reactions from me and the others in the galleries – so many people reach out (and try) to touch coarse rusted metal, getting as close as possible, drawn to the work, circling it, crouching and tilting their heads, wondering how something so heavy can be in that position without falling over!

This got me thinking about interactive within 3D spaces. Interactive designers often try to figure out how to get these deep emotional connections using sight/sound/motion by simulating 3D environments on-screen. We are swamped by 3D move-arounds in everything from games to real estate, seeping down into most types of information architecture visualisation. I spent most of my time in the 2nd floor where 3 massive, recent works of undulating metal formed spaces, paths and a disconcerting maze: I was floored! In fact, one guy was so blown away that he didn’t notice that he had walked so far back to get a good look that he was inches from a large plate glass wall. When he turned around to walk away, he smacked the glass wall so hard that people jumped, thinking that one of the Serra’s was falling over – a towel for his bloody nose and a giggling security guard brought peace back to the intimidating and inviting space. I wandered around this room for nearly an hour, thinking that this was where I want to see interactive moving – work that causes people to look to the ceiling and the floor, that makes them circle and ponder, reach and out, and in this case, touch the work. I went out into the rain on 7th Avenue inspired, imagining massive projections on curving, sinuous, sexy walls made of plastic and resin, clusters of LCD screens arranged on ceiling, floors and within odd-shaped spaces, people with mobile phones chirping away with data coming off the surfaces as they moved around and kids and adults alike getting really close and then back up far away to get a glimpse the joy and wonder of the work. Without the bloody noses, of course….another few pages of the notebook to fill on the way back to LA.

June 14, 2007, 12:16 pm : Cannes Cyber Jury – Day 2

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Thurs 14 June – Cannes – Tom Eslinger

Today is the first day of judging, beginning with a briefing for the judges and a some guidance from me on what to look for and where I feel we need to go: find the big, game-changing ideas and aim for a high, Cannes-worthy standard for Cyber and the rest of the Festival, too. I’m keen to get everyone working as fast as possible, so we move into the judging room, got behind our computers and got clicking. This is when reality sets in – with a record high number of entries, we have a huge amount of work ahead, each of us judging over 500 entries in four days. The first day has a slow start – some of the jury have been on planes up to 20 hours and the empty coffee pots prove this point. It’s a little hard to get to know people when you spend the whole day with headphones on looking at the screen, but the feeling in the room is warm, and not just from the lack of air conditioning. I looked around at lunch at this really interesting group of people and I feel like I’m in a cool, smart graduate school exchange programme in the south of France. Well, I guess I am. And the final exam is just around the corner.

June 13, 2007, 11:53 am : Cannes Cyber Jury – Day 1

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Weds 13 June – Cannes – Tom Eslinger

I arrived in Nice early this morning after a surprisingly non-grueling flight from across the planet. Folks on the plane were quiet, no noisy babies and I finally got to see ‘Ghost Rider’ – all was right with the world. My seat-mate was a nice enough guy, worked in the ‘medical imaging field’ (didn’t ask, just nodded). He asked what I did and I told him I was a creative director, on my way to the Cannes Advertising Festival – this is where the confusion began. I had to explain that no, I didn’t make movies, had never met Bruce Willis and that I actually worked on all of the interactive and mobile advertising for our company. Blank. Stare. From. Him. I gave him a couple of examples of work I’d done, but gave up when I caught a glimpse of Nicolas Cages’ flaming skull on the screen. This made me think about the Festival and being part of the Cyber Jury again this year. When I was first on the Cyber Jury in 2002, I was having the same conversation with folks, but it was with people that were actually attending the Festival, working in advertising. I’ve just returned from our first dinner as the full Cyber jury and the buzz is good, people are excited and interactive has matured – quickly – into a highly anticipated, well subscribed (entries are up again this year) part of the Festival – how things change. And the judging starts in 8 hours….

April 27, 2007, 11:55 pm : From Africa to (almost) Arctic Monkeys

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For last last few years, I’ve moved as quickly as possible to the desert, dumped my bag at Las Palmas and headed directly to Indio to get sunburned, drink hideously expensive beer and watch the best bands in the world (well, I think so) rock out in the sun for two days (expanded to three days this year) at the Coachella Music Festival. This year was no different, but all together different. Getting out to the desert was a massive journey, starting in Accra, Ghana where I was presenting with my colleagues to a client meeting. The tricky bit was that the meeting ended the day before the first show on Friday and I needed to get from Africa to the Coachella Valley in time to see Arctic Monkeys!!

LCD Soundsystem

With the 9 hour time difference and flying back in time, I managed to get to LAX, change bags, jump in the car and get a new cell phone just as the first band I wanted to see took the stage (Satellite Party) and as I drove, well not really driving, CRAWLED down the 10 freeway to managed to miss every band that I wanted to see on a nearly 5 hour 100 mile drive. Bjork went on at 11pm and I managed to get a beer, park the car and run full-tilt to catch a bit of the show.

Girl with Friend / Guy with too much eyeliner in 103 degree heat

The Good, The Bad and The Queen

April 19, 2007, 12:46 am : Article for China’s MODERN Advertising Magazine

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I wrote this article recently for China’s MODERN Magazine (thanks for the opportunity, Mr Chen). Enjoy.

Turning Brands into Networks of Content

More and more people know how to make and distribute their own creations. Now we are surrounded with a kind of static produced by consumers as a result of the literally millions of images, movies, songs, reviews, posts, instant messages, ring tones, blog pages and avatars that are beamed at us from every screen and speaker. This static threatens to overwhelm the advertising messages we create – our audience is taking control of how our brands are represented.

We must respond to this new challenge. Either we can get in the way, get out of the way or make those consumers our partners.

Partnering with consumers is the first step in turning your brand into a network of fans.

Trust
Our audience is very smart, sometimes smarter than the people creating the ads that invite them in. People are beginning to know the difference between ideas that bring them closer to the brands that they love and advertising posing as fake content. In order to involve people with a brand and to get them to contribute to the channel you are building around the brand, you need to be truthful early in your exchanges with the audience. Everyone likes to share an experience that makes them feel an emotional connection. Making someone feel moved to respond or getting someone to smile are part of what makes my job so fulfilling. The consumer relationship is damaged when you trick someone while they are making an emotional connection and sharing their ideas (and time) with your idea or brand. Recently “flogs” (fake blogs) have done damage to brands like Wal-mart and McDonald’s, causing criticism in the mainstream media and blogs around the world.

Creating trust is the second step in turning your brand into a network of content.

Safety
We must make sure that consumers understand that they are in a safe environment while they are creating content and sharing with the brand. Everyone worries about whether their personal information is safe while they are on the web or using their mobile phone. Be clear about what you are doing with information you are gathering. You want people to know that every channel they encounter with your brand is a safe place to share ideas and information. Lincoln Mercury created a web site where people could share their dreams, connecting with others who shared the same ideas and values. Members of the site can read encouraging stories and will soon be able to post content showing how they have made their dreams come true. Consumers will only engage with at such a personal level if they believe that they are among friends who will do them no harm.

Making consumers feel safe is the third step towards turning your brand into a network of fans.

Rewards
There are two ways to reward your audience: with great benefits and great ideas – the best brand networks do both. Keeping people interested calls for a constant flow of stimulation and reasons to keep coming back, so that consumers will share more and keenly collaborate to create more and more content. Creating partnerships with other brands that share your audience allows the total audience to grow. Do this by providing prizes of goods or services from brands they already love. A roster of partners that is continually changing keeps your brand’s network of content fresh and interesting. Sites like MyNuMo, Revver and Break.com allow users to make money by creating and sharing content for computers and mobile phones. YouTube has also announced that they will create a revenue-sharing programme to support the creativity of the YouTube audience. Coke Rewards gives points to members with every product purchased and Coke customers can purchase prizes from partner sites using your points. This has made a strong reward system for a well-loved brand. The success of the Coke Rewards programme has ensured that it is now being rolled out over other Coca-Cola brands.

The fourth step in building a network of fans is by rewarding consumers for engaging with your brand.

Why would my brand need to have a network?
Web 2.0 has completely changed the world for most brands and their advertising agencies, especially those developing social networks where people can closely interact with brands. By placing more and more control with consumers, brands have a new opportunity to develop a deep, on-going relationship with their audiences. Nokia’s Music Recommenders is an example of a brand using networks of content to demonstrate both their product (a music capable phone) and their understanding of their audience (we can help you find the music you like). Branded MySpace pages can also create huge buzz without huge expense. Wendy’s Hamburgers and Toyota Yaris have each had about 90,000 ‘friends’ interact, share and create content with the brands. In both cases, the content and reward fit well with the audience and the environment.

Much is written about advertising-culture disruptions like YouTube, Google, MySpace and SecondLife, changing our relationship with our audience. Even so, the idea of changing from pushing content to pulling and sharing content is still new and untried for most brands and their agencies.

In order to fully understand what happens when you release control of a brand’s identity and engage consumers, you must carefully consider how you will begin this new relationship between brand and audience. A simple process to follow is the 3C’s: Create, Connect, Control. These are the three basic questions underpinning Web 2.0.

• Can your audience be creative with your brand?
• Can they connect with a community or service?
• Are they in control of the experience?

Ask yourself these questions when you are evaluating a networking idea for your client and then find media partners or providers who can make sure that your idea fits the audience you want to connect to your brand and to help build your client’s network. Putting power into the hands of the audience can be frightening, but when done properly this creates a powerful relationship based on trust, safety and rewards.

In the new world of too much content, providing a smart, inclusive experience makes all the difference between just some more static and a fantastic consumer experience.

February 2, 2007, 5:40 am : A Land Down Under

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Oh yes, do I love Sydney. This week has been great – creative board meeting to look at the work, plot and plan and to do it in one of my favourite places in the world is, as the locals would say, ‘CHOICE MATE’. Had a completely Starkish time, thanks to Nobby, Semi and Nic for the great hospitality. Here are my top 10 reasons that I love Sydney (or maybe just Australia)….here we go:

10. Most awesome crest (see top image)

09. Sydney Harbour

08. The Harbour Bridge

07. Bondi Beach

06 (tie). Kylie Minogue and giant bats flitting around at night (see above image of actual size Kylie and Fruit Bat – Kylie is on the left)

05. Elizabeth Bay

04. Oxford St (above the Colombian Hotel)
03. Hyde Park

02. The understated and high-brow fashion sense of certain Aussie Boys (above Oxford Street shop Dayly Male)
01. The Opera House (yup, it’s corny but true….)

Had a great time and great meetings, capped off by a boat trip to a remote beach for a Kiwi-style bar-b-que (sponsored by NZ S&S office). How can you tell it’s a Kiwi Barbie? You have to carry all the crap with you, set it up, cook your own food and then haul it back to town with you! Thanks Mike and Andrew – it made me feel like I was home…

December 28, 2006, 2:32 am : New York, London, LA, Utah – everybody talk about….

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The last month has been pretty crazy, plenty of cool things going on, along with travel to some of my favourite places in the world. London is fantastic, one of the reasons I love it so is the Tate Modern, home to one of my most beloved, humbling collections of paintings from Mark Rothko. The suite of works, originally meant to hang in the Four Seasons in NYC are now shown together, as intended by Rothko, being enjoyed by millions, rather than diners more interested in their Cobb Salads. I snuck this photo (below) and gave the Rothko’s a big set of horns cuz they ROCK.

NYC was a great trip, combining a pile of meetings with birthdays, tapings of Saturday Night Live and Letterman and seeing ‘A Chorus Line’ for the 6,246th time. The photo on the top is some cool graffiti that I HAD to get a picture with, just to remember the type and colours. The photo below is one of those weird ‘how was I in this place at this time?’ moments. I was squatting in my boss’s office and looked up and saw the Empire State Building, always a little breath-taking for a kid from North Dakota. As I was looking out, the clouds started moving, slowly at first, until they opened up this hole above the building – geez, I thought it was ‘Independence Day’, until seconds later, it was gone.

Now, writing this from the cool B&B in Salt Lake City, recovering from a day of trashing my new board and soaking up the peace and quiet of the mountains. A beautiful way to end up 2006. If you’re reading this, you’re probably one of my family or friends, so Happy, Successful, Karmically-Korrect 2007 to you all! XX Tom

December 28, 2006, 2:07 am : VH1 Best of 2006 Awards – free tix are always, always good

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After whining for a suitable amount of time, I managed to get a pair of tickets to the VH1 Best of 2006 Awards. Very cool to get on the Sony Pictures lot, cooler still to see Tommy Lee up close and even cooler to meet Ice-T and DL Hughley at the after party. I saw Dennis DeYoung, which made me want to go up and tell him that ‘Mr Roboto’ is STILL a ruling tune, but he was with some scary folks and I moved slowly away. A really nice, fun way to spend a Saturday night with the top down on the car driving into the city and 70 degree winter warmth all around (thank God for California, huh?). The pic below is a montage, if you will: Justin Timberlake on the left (dressed like a stock boy from Banana Republic) and Fergie from BEP singing (I use the word loosely) her other tune that sounds like ‘Hollaback Girl’.

November 3, 2006, 5:21 pm : Ultraman Dagger = Bad Customs Career Move…

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So, the next time you are in China grooving on the cool Ultraman toys that you can get for like, a dollar, thinking that Halloween is just around the corner and you need that something else, that little thing that will really make your costume, make sure you don’t do what I did.

When packing on my final morning in Shanghai, I repacked all of my cool Ultraman toys, masks, toy guns and, er, Space Daggerâ„¢. At the last minute, I took the Space Daggerâ„¢ out of my luggage and threw it away, much to the surprise of Anthony Yang from our China interactive office. I guess that I forgot that I bought TWO masks with free Space Daggerâ„¢ and one was tucked away in the bottom of my luggage. I hop on the plane and arrive in USA ten hours later….

I run my luggage through the X-Ray and am pulled aside into the little cubicle to open my bag and explain the SPACE DAGGERâ„¢, which must have looked gnarly cool on the X-Ray. While the customs dude went to get his boss, I quickly knocked off these snaps. After much bowing and scraping to the Customs Gestapo, I left my Space Daggerâ„¢ behind, but retained the masks, keeping my secret identity in check to fight this battle another day….

October 3, 2006, 6:44 pm : Ball Ideas – Get ‘em in!

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On Tuesday 3 October, Kevin Roberts gave the WW Interactive Directors a limited edition Nike Soccer Ball. The challenge was to “do something with it”. Here are the ideas – pick the one you like, post your comment as a vote (with your name) and the one with the most votes on Weds get done, second place gets done next, etc. OK guys, get on the, er, Ball.

Skin Ball – Peter Kang
The “ball” has graphics all over it that mean something different to different people. I look at it and see videogame references in pop culture, like the two swords that make up Zelda. The idea is that we need a fabric or “skin” to connect everyone’s idea of what this stuff means to them. So visually we have this page with a grid of the icons grafted onto people’s skin in different countries as a tattoo. It removes the icons from the ball and places them under the personal context of the body and how icons relate to us as humans. Following each set of photographs of the tattoos on skin would be a small collection of that office’s and country’s perception of that particular icon or symbol. The stories can be audio/video/photos…I just thought a good way to connect the symbolism with personal stories would be through something sensual like skin, rather than something digital like motion graphics.

Move the Ball – Tom Eslinger
When you have the ball, you put our finger on a world map and find the closest S&S office. You find someone in the office to be your collaborator and ship the ball to that S&S office. The person who receives the ball begins to post pics, clues, vids, Google ad words, posts on YouTube, etc on a blog page we’ll set up on Flik’r, myspace, whatever. The idea is to give all of the other players clues of the ball’s location – the first player who guesses gets to select the next office and get’s the current office to ship the ball to its next destination. The ball then starts moving again – we can even track it by installing a GPS chip in it or using FedEx to track it’s progress online.

Alessandro Piersimoni

PR spin
Create 10-12 viral videos (by each interactive office), guerrilla etc, promoting (via youtube,etc.) a treasur hunt (the ball it’s the rare treasure). We would involve the public. The person who finds the ball gets a job in the interactive network. It starts as a teaser and then becomes reveal.

Saatchi Interactive internal award
The ball it’s like the world cup trophy. It travels to each interactive office that wins most awards in a year. A healthy network competition. There could be a reward attached to it, like travels/points and so on.

Uwe Gutschow

Turn the ball into a sisomo case study
Perhaps the ball gets passed around from agency to agency and we all have to come up with an idea to post on youtube that incorporates the ball in a funny way, other than soccer. Would be great if Saatchi could sneak the ball into various media photos/video, kind of like thetouristguy (but this would be more difficult to do as a saatchi PR stunt).

Make the ball interactive
Use the ball as an exhibition in sisomo where each of the icons on the ball, when touched, plays a clip, audio/animation. Would be cool if we could do this as a hologram or project on the actual ball. This way the inspiration and meaning of the icons become more real.

Olivier Petit
Olivier sent through a PDF with some visuals, but no copy to explain the ideas! His email: “Please find attached some rough ideas about the ball. As you’ll see my art director is not hired yet. Not sur to be into it but it what came out.”

Check them out here – it may inspire….something!

Adriaan Glastra
The soccer ball will make a “Global Tour” across the S&Interactive offices, and will stay in each country for two days…the local offices are responsible to send it via UPS to the next office. We can stablish the calendar. The idea is to film in HD or in digital video each and every human being in the interactive office passing the ball from left to right (screen right to left)…and generate a cool video with those shots…or at least to have the material for future stuff. The overall video could be recreated across every office in the network, with a huge continuous loop of peple passing the ball around, going around the world.

Matt and Andrew – NYC
Who’s got the ball?
Interactive achievement totem

The ball should used internally to recognize achievement with in the global interactive network. It will become a trophy of accomplishment, and will be used to create a healthy competitive attitude with in the network. At the end of each 100 day Interactive summit the ball will be awarded to an individual office or person.

Similar to Ogilvy’s ‘red braces’ or ‘pillar of the universe’ award, the ball will recognize exemplary performance / being a great team player / going beyond the call of duty / etc.

Pedestals will be set up with in the interactive department of each office where the ball will be displayed.

Possible criteria, for being awarded the ball could be:

- Winning a new piece of business
- Winning the most awards at a given awards show
- Achieving / surpassing revenue goals
- Producing a noteworthy campaign

Saatchi will create a password protected site www.whosgottheball.com. The site will serve as a leaderboard within the network. Its homepage will be dedicated to whoever the current holder of the ball is. Content will highlight the event that won the ball away from another office.

The site will also keep a running tally of which offices held the ball when and for how long.

Similar to the roaming gnome, the ball will make a journey around the world as it moves from office to office. Current holders of the ball are responsible for photographing it in interesting / iconic / unusual places within their geographical location. These photos will also serve as an incentive to win the ball back.

September 26, 2006, 2:00 am : 80s, the Hollywood Bowl and Jane Weidlin

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A dream come true, really….ABC (but without Eden and Mark White, bummer followed by the Psychaedelic Furs and, wait for it, Human League. In between, Jane Weidlin MC’d an 80s karaoke sing-a-long with 16,000 people in the audience, with drag queens standing in for the Go-Gos. I kid you not.
It was fantastic, great seats up front (thanks to a friend with friends) and meeting Jane backstage. Well, not really meeting, just squeeling like a little girl until she came over for a picture. Check out my monkey gallery for the full horror of pudgy 80s new wavers in the single best amphitheatre around! Please not the Key-Tar in the background of the Human League’s stage. They had 4 of them! Bitchin’, dude!

September 20, 2006, 2:59 pm : My FJ Cruiser Rules

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That pretty much says it all. I got an FJ Cruiser, mainly because one of the other guys in the office has one and I was dark red with envy. To put this all behind me I got a dark red FJ, one of the many perks of working on a car brand, especially one that makes such tasty trucks. It brought back memories of driving around in my friends’ old International Harvester trucks when we were young stoners in North Dakota, bored and driving big dumb trucks long before they were cool. I immediately took FH out to the desert to live out my off-roading fantasies. Unfortunately, my fantasy should have included reading how to engage the 4WD because I sank this sucked in the sand shortly after I took these pics.
With a little calm thinking (and some desperate text messaging for instructions) I got FJ to literally jump out of the sand and back on the asphalt in no time. Can’t wait to take FJ up the mountain, loaded with snowboards and comic books very very soon…..

September 2, 2006, 3:20 pm : Paris, Subway, Metros and Marilyn Monroe

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I had meetings in Paris this past week and got to spend a little time off on Weds wandering the coolest fucking city I’ve been to so far in these 41 years. Man, I love that place. I stayed near the Louvre at this great little hotel which is cheap(ish), well located and air conditioned. I ran to the Eiffel Tower every morning and waved at the other (obviously) non-Parisians in their ‘Paris’ t-shirts and far too shiny Reeboks. Visited my favourite stores on Rue St Honore-Fauborg, Commes Des Garcons and Colette. I love them because of their hidesouly overpriced shirts that are far too small for my middle-aged gut, their $12E designer pencils and the staff that wear little white gloves and wipe down the display cases whenever you get within a metre of them.
I especially love Colette and CDG to people watch-it’s like an entire issue of all of the latest fashion rags, but acted out live as Kabuki theatre. I bought some cologne, tried on some Marc Jacobs Vans that were faaar too young for me and went to the Marilyn Monroe photo exhibition at Musee Maillol. The pics are all from Bert Stern, still stunning and sad after all these years. I had fun time in the Marais, visiting some cool stores (constantly looking for the latest addition to a comic or bear collection), great bars and finished off with dinner at Georges at Pompidou Centre, overlooking the city at sunset with a lovely glass of wine and the Eiffel Tower sparkling in the distance. Ah, I love my job. At CDG (the airport, not the store) I looked at the guy across from me in the lounge – it was the formerly fat guy in the Subway ads, being watched closely by everyone else who noticed him, as he picked at a plate of vegetables, which everyone secretly hoped was a plate of Cheeto’s and Ding-dongs with a beer to chase it down…

September 2, 2006, 2:40 pm : Flip-flops outside Apartment Zero

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I’ve spent the last week in South America, whirlwind trip through Sao Paulo and Buenos Aires. I was on a meeting, setting up and meeting some more trip for work, which is always good fun, hard work and everything in between. I didn’t get enough time to see much of Sao Paulo, aside from our cool offices, cool people and a cool restaurant. The hotel was really fun and funky, with a great pool, bar and just enough crap from the desparely cool staff to let me know that this was somewhere cool and that I was damn well lucky to even get a drink, let alone pay for it. Restaurant Figuera was a recommendation which was dead-on, great food and a fuck-of decorating idea: build the restaurant around, I don’t know…how about….a GIANT TREE! Branches everywhere, dressed-up, surgically enhanced (or reduced, take your pick) women and men nibbling on amazing food beneath the tree’s branches – the most expensive picnic I’ve ever had. I bought piles of Habeineros for about $8 bucks, rather than shelling out $80 at Kitson. You can check out some pics here.

The next couple of days were in Buenos Aires, which is etched in my mind from one of my favourite movies of all time, the campy ‘Apartment Zero‘, with the hunky Hart Bochner and Colin Furth. Hard to find on DVD, but worth the search. Went to Evita Peron’s grave with the rest of the folks at our meeting, which I thought was a little weird, but what the hell, we like big brands and Evita is certainly a big brand. The creepy cats added to the atmostphere, reminding me of the time I was in Pere Lachaise at dusk and the biggest fucking crows I have ever seen started appearing around us, followed by cats lurking near the crypts. I was waiting for Carmina Burana to start playing and some dude hacking open a crypt and discovering the Jim Morrison was….really….a jackal!! This graffitti was in one of the plaza’s of the old part of BA and Andrea from our BA office told us that protests happen regularly and that the fences which cut the plaza in half are permanently in place.

August 7, 2006, 7:02 pm : New favourite bands, corndogs, drag queens and Magritte

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I really love live music and I really love festival shows and I really love that being back in the USA means that I can indulge myself, splurge on the old airpoints and go to Chicago for the weekend to see Lollapalooza. Although not quite the alternative hot spot of years past (what the fuck is Blues Traveler doing there?), I did see Mute Math, Editors and my new FAVOURITE BAND© Be Your Own Pet. I know that they have already been ruined when they were written up in Rolling Stone, but they were so much fun and had such great energy and I’m always a sucker for a mouthy girl saying ‘FUCK’ every other word.

I saw the Flaming Lips for the third time and it was just as amazing as the others, which made up for the pouty Sonic Youth and the mumbly Ryan Adams. Geez, you’d think that the nice weather and crowds completely fired up to see them would have brought out a couple of smiles, but no – Ryan Adams, fuck off and go make another average album and take Sonic Youth with ya. The next day brought a trip to the Art Institute, with all of the superstar Dj painters on display for the tourists. All my old pals were there – De Chirico, Seurat, Twombly and my personal pal, Magritte. In fact, I saw a Magritte that must have been down in the basement on my other visits. Check it out below – if anyone knows the name of this work, pls post it – can’t find it on the ‘tute site! Help!!

I almost forgot about the corndogs and drag queens, lots of both at the Northalsted Market Days. It was like a normal main street, aside from the cute girls making out with each other and the bears with dog leashes attached to their nipples. I was disappointed that the corn dogs weren’t more, shall we say, thematically shaped…I did a double take at the drag stage! Remember Felly, the chick from Technotronic that sang, er mouthed, ‘Pump up the Jam’ in the 80s, the one with the blue lipstick? This guy pays homage with his rendition of ‘Get Up (before the night is over)’. Check the uncanny resemblance. Where’s Spy Magazine when I need it?

July 30, 2006, 1:01 am : Chicago, Lollapalooza and early morning flights…

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Off to Chicago for the weekend, with an early start on Thursday. Cashed in airmiles for the flight, with a great room near the park, stumbling distance to the concert. These pics are from the Coachella Festival this year at end of April 06. It was a really great time, it was warm, the bands were amazing and I got to see Depeche Mode w/o Dave Gahan passing out and slurring his words. Madonna was in the local gay bar longer than she was onstage, but it was fun to be in the crowd with such great energy. I’ve got my schedule all worked out (mostly) for Chicago, really want to see Sonic Youth, Ryan Adams and RHCP. More later…