Archive for November 2005

In an excerpt from his new management guide, Let My People Go Surfing, Patagonia’s contrarian founder talks about breaking the rules—and creating the world’s most iconoclastic adventure-apparel company.

Outside Online

The December newsletter from TrendWatching provides a refreshing, frank and exhilarating guide to spotting trends. The newsletter follows TW’s tour of the world where they have been preaching the same message. TW says:

"Let’s face it, the art of trend watching often isn’t particularly academic. A mix of curiosity and open-mindedness, and a fascination with manifestations of the (seemingly) new will get you a long way.

And subsequently applying your findings and spottings and turning them into new goods, services and experiences for, or even better, with your customers is more about creativity and guts than about endless studies and number crunching."

There are a lot of tips and tricks (we’re glad they suggested using Flickr!) and if you don’t have the time or inclination - you could always consider reading a trend spotting site like PSFK! Thanks for the mention TW!

TrendWatching Newsletter

David Parmet is a freelance PR and marketing professional who specializes in promoting bloggers and web 2.0 projects. He recently helped with the promotion of English Cut and Stormhoek wine – two blog favorites within the blogorati. IF caught up with him to talk about his approach to promoting English Cut in the US.

IF <available to all for limited time>

Morgwn emailed in to tell us about a community service that lets folk swap books. Once you’ve read the book version of the film Jarhead, for example, simply tell the site where you’re going to leave it. Then another user looking for the war-story book can search the site and find that it’s available on a bench or in an office on Broadway, NYC. BookCrossing has 422,443 members since it launched in 2001.

BookCrossing
<img via BlackBeltJones>

With citizen journalism comes a greater scrutiny of not only the press but also the ‘trade’ press. The blog Alarm Clock this morning compains about Business 2.0 stealing a methodology for valuing blog networks without reference to their original thinking. Their post was originally entitled ‘B2.0 Lifts Our Post’ but we’ve noticed they’ve changed the title during the day to ‘B2.0 Influenced By Our Post’ - oooh, someone sent them a stern email, we assume.

While we’re at it - we’re going to mention something we noticed in Wired in December 05’s issue. It looks like Wired have done a Vogue - i.e. blurred the line between editorial and advertising. Here’s the thing: isn’t it funny that Wired does a ‘write up’ on page 78 on a video game that has taken out a 4 page advertising spread in the beginning of the magazine? Chris Anderson, tut tut, where’s the transparency?

Jalopnik points to a little system from BT that helps track your stolen car by GPS. If a car with special receivers is driven without a special fob, it alerts the police about the location of your car. That will stop your teenage daughter getting to that party you’ve banned her from goping to … or so you think.

Jalopnik Write Up

OK. So we’re thinking about doing some. Anyone want to contribute a design? I think the kick back is 25% from the online store we’re thinking about using - so splitzies with anyone who we pick to work with??

Here’s the (half baked) brief - either:

• A design around the letters ‘PSFK’
• A design around the concept of - ‘reveal more’ (look at the graphic folded corner as a illustration of this concept)
• A design that (this is not our own words but Johnny’s:) riffs on a current trend theme

In the end we’ll need high def JPEGs or some Vecta type thingies - but short term, send us a regular JPEG. When? Like, now! Email piers@psfk.com

There are probably a few PSFK readers who also browsed last months issue of Metropolis that featured the new Bloomberg offices on 59th and Lexington in NYC. I happened to get a tour of the building today and here’s a report of what I saw. Sorry for the lack of photo’s, the security there is so tight, I didn’t dare even bring a camera in.

The first thing you experience (not even part of the tour) is the courtyard leading to the lobby. The building is crescent shaped and tapers up. From the courtyard there is an amazing view of the interior spaces and an oval shaped section of the sky framed by the building’s edges. The lobby itself is pretty spare. There is a long hotel style security desk that is all frosted glass and internally illuminated. When you check in, a staff member tells you to look straight ahead at a bank of Bloomberg terminals (you’ll probably be looking there anyway) and a hidden camera takes your picture for a temp. access badge. It’s way more sci-fi than I’ve described it. There is no furniture in the lobby. Just a slate floor, frosted glass panel walls and beautiful stone wall panels.

Everyone at Bloomberg is encouraged to mingle. There are a lot of different seemingly non-related activities that take place there. So rather than everyone taking the elevator to their separate floors, all staff must ride to the 6th where there is a cafe and ’social area’ My tour guide said that most new hires gain 15 pounds as a result of this very well stocked, always open cafe. It looked good to me.

The 6th floor is also home to several large LED video boards that wrap around the space. All have very cool motion graphics on them and give the space a real energy. In fact the use of LED lighting is everywhere. Whole walls cycle through colors and each department has color coordinated signage and lighting.

Following Mike Bloomberg’s work philosophy, all the offices within the building are glass. and many are totally open with no walls. Open planning is not new, but here it is very much refined. The conference rooms are handled in an interesting way. All are completely glass and many have translucent, full height graphics applied to them that change throughout the year. They aren’t your typical business graphics either.

And then there are the fish. Right as you step off the elevator on the 6th floor, there is a raised seating area that bridges a Koi pond. It was intentionally planned so that the most number people could have a view of it. I figure there were about three dozen fish in it… and a rare albino frog. As you walk around from floor to floor, there are fish tanks all over. Granted these are each about the size of an office desk and hold dozens of fish. It could have been cheesy, but the fish are pretty cool.

As if that wasn’t enough to look at and distract you from getting on with work, Each floor has a collection of contemporary artwork. There is a large Spencer Finch piece similar to this one that hangs over the spiral escalator leading down to the broadcast studio.

In my opinion, this is an architectural gem in Manhattan. It’s rare here when building exterior and interior design are both inspiring and as well thought out. I left wondering if I’ll ever see a project with that kind of budget (or utter lack of) and really feeling inspired. Make friends with someone who works there and try and get in to see it. Very much worth the effort.

In Germany’s largest national daily newspaper "Sueddeutsche Zeitung" I
stumbled across a very interesting article about US Muvico Theatres. Muvico is a movie theater chain intending to rival large multiplex
chains such as Rave Motion Pictures. According to Wikipedia their
current screens-per-franchise average is 19.5, the highest in the movie
theater industry.

Since its foundation in 1984 Muvico has set up a dozen theatres in
Florida, moving on to franchise their concept in Maryland and Tennessee.

Each Muvico Theatre has a unique architecture that reminds of Las Vegas
theme hotels or Grauman’s Chinesse Theater in Hollywood. Services
include Valet-Parking, Unlimited Popcorn in the "Premiere Section",
full service bar, gourmet restaurant, Red Velvet Lounge Seats, Regular
24-inch wide theatre seats, and on-premise childcare.

Hamid Hashemi, CEO of Muvico is quoted in the article "In the end our
product is the film. And we get the film the same way everyone else
gets it. The difference is how you package the film. It’s the
experience that you turn it into that makes the difference between
going to one of our theatre’s and someone else’s".

Contributed by Mizbitchy