PSFK News

We are excited to have Amit Gupta of Photojojo joining us at PSFK Conference San Francisco 2008 on our “San Francisco Snapshot” panel,where passionate locals, including Liz Dunn of FunnyOrDie and Jeremy Townsend of The Ghetto Gourmet (led by moderator Colin Nagy of Attention) will discuss what makes the Bay Area tick and what aspects of SF/Bay Area culture inspire them the most.

First, who are you and what do you do?

Hi. My name’s Amit Gupta. I am a creative, hard-working, honest young man who likes to create fun things online.

I run a company called Photojojo, we’re the world’s awesomest photography newsletter.

We’re also working on a book that will be published by Random House next year, and some new ways for people to have fun with photography online.

I’ve started a lot of different projects and companies, and am always working on something new. Most recently, I started a casual coworking event called Jelly while living in NYC. Since then, it’s spread to 20 cities around the world and been on the Today Show, Wired, NPR (twice), etc.

You’ll be speaking on our “San Francisco Snapshot” panel. Can you explain what you find inspirational about the Bay Area and why? What makes it different than any other place in the world?

People here are not afraid of failure.

There’s a great entrepreneurial spirit here, and startups seem to grow like weeds, but it has less to do with the weather, the proximity of venture capital, or history, and more to do with the culture. Here, it’s okay to try something and fall on your face. You just get up and try again. That’s not normal anywhere else.

Some sites that provide you with inspiration:

Mostly these days my inspiration comes from my friends, almost always through one of these three:
Tumblr
Flickr
Twitter

Thanks, Amit!

Photojojo

Amit Gupta

To hear more from Amit come join us at PSFK Conference San Francisco 2008!

We’re looking forward to having Mark Lewis, strategy director at DDB, join us at PSFK Conference San Francisco. On our “Using It” panel along with Adrian Ho (Zeus Jones), George Parker (AdScam), Lynn Casey (Team Noesis) and Rohit Bhargava (Ogilvy 360 Digital Influence), Mark will be discussing how companies can use social media to enhance consumer dialogue, evolve product offerings, and improve sales.

First, who are you and what do you do?

I’m a strategy director at DDB in San Francisco working on brands ranging from SunPower (one of the largest solar panel manufacturers) to Brita to STP. I’d define my job as introducing interesting things or ways of thinking to people in the hope of inspiring them to do things a little differently.

You’ll be speaking on our “Using It” social media panel. Can you sum up your views on how you are seeing companies and organizations leverage social media to enhance consumer dialogue, evolve product offerings, and/or improve sales? In what direction do you see Social Media taking brands in the future?

While it is great to see companies beginning to use social media and engage in the web in a new way, the number of companies that have truly grasped the true model shift created by the social web is relatively small. Brands have to figure out how to engage consumers in a dialogue where they have something to give beyond entertainment (because very few brands can do that well over the long term) – where their marketing becomes an extension of what they do.

Four sites that provide you with inspiration:

PostSecret
Pandora
Google Labs
GigaOM

Thanks, Mark!

DDB

Have you bought your tickets for PSFK Conference San Francisco yet?

We’re excited to have Andrew Hoppin, co-founder of NASA CoLab, joining us at PSFK Conference San Francisco 2008 on our “Collaboration & Co-Working” panel. Alongside Ezra Cooperstein from Current TV, Andrew will be discussing how collaboration can be utilized to engage communities (even ones as big as NASA!).

First, who are you and what do you do?

Though a planetary geologist and environmental scientist by training, I came back to NASA in 2006 because of my experience as a social entrepreneur, Web strategist and grassroots political organizer. There, I helped create NASA CoLab, which builds collaborative communities for NASA, online and offline, in service of a more transparent and efficient Federal government.

I also recently co-founded Brazil’s first online political technology company, and Mission Ad Network, an online advertising network for Socially Responsible businesses.
My volunteer work includes representing the Space Generation Advisory Council at the UN, and the advisory board of the New Organizing Institute.

You’ll be speaking on our Collaborative Co-Working panel -can you sum up your views on how collaborative work is changing how companies engage with their customers, staff, partners, and the community?

Collaborative co-working puts more people on the creative “edges” of workgroups by fostering informal but vocationally relevant peer-to-peer interaction across boundaries of bureaucracy, organization, and in the case of NASA with Second Life, physical geography. Cultural cross-pollination results, making organizations more contextually aware, nimble, and responsive. Co-working creates more human points of contact within an organization, melting bureaucracy away and generating creative juice from the meltwater. Now, after more than a year of building communities for NASA through online, offline, and virtual reality co-working at NASA Ames Research Center in Silicon Valley, we’re turning our attention to bringing these practices to other NASA Centers around the country, and collaborating with colleagues at other Agencies to share this learning across the Federal Government. There has been a lot of rhetoric about “change” in this year’s Presidential Election; we like to think we’re helping to build the DNA necessary to implement rapid change into the Federal bureaucracy.

Five sites that provide you with inspiration?

Open NASA
CharityFocus
BarCamp
X PRIZE Foundation
Twitter

Thanks, Andrew!

NASA CoLab

Hear more from Andrew at PSFK Conference San Francisco 2008 - get your tickets now!

Our top five articles from June 23 - June 29, 2008. Results are based on Google Analytics and in order of overall page views

We Need More Power, Keep Dancing! - Dan Gould

Magical Image Digesting Duck - Dan Gould

Lessons Learned from Ze Frank (Being Me) - Christine Huang

Nike To Finally Release Back To The Future Sneaker - Dan Gould

Pool Crashing via Google Earth - Dan Gould

We are thrilled to be having Jeremy Townsend of The Ghetto Gourmet joining us for PSFK Conference San Francisco 2008 on our “San Francisco Snapshot” panel, where passionate SFers will discuss what aspects of local culture inspire them the most, and what makes the Bay Area tick. The panel will be led by Colin Nagy (Attention) and will include Liz Dunn (FunnyOrDie) and Amit Gupta (Photojojo).

First, who are you and what do you do?

I’m Jeremy Townsend. I’m a writer, event producer and creative marketer. I’m the founder of the Ghetto Gourmet. Using the internet, a fun brand and a little mystery, I took a monday night “underground restaurant” project and organized over 300 community dining events all over the country. I juxtapose the culinary and performing arts in “secret” locations and invite a bunch of strangers. I like to make great things happen, and I’m always looking for new challenges.

You’ll be speaking on our “San Francisco Snapshot” panel. Can you explain what you find inspirational about the Bay Area and why? What makes it different than any other place in the world?

There is a general openness in the Bay Area that makes it a great sandbox and incubator for news ideas. I think that comes from the West Coast being a little younger and wilder than the East Coast. People come here with a desire for adventure, a willingness to trust and an passion for building something new. When I first came here I was struck by how many people seemed to lead two lives: a corporate full-time career and a terrifically unrelated hobby or passion that, with any luck, might someday take over their day jobs. The Bay Area is not just permissive of experimentation, we tend to encourage it. There is a curiosity and genuine interest in seeing what people can come up with.

Five sites that provide you with inspiration:

Improv Everywhere
intellectual properties
TED
Inhabitat
thehappycorp

Thanks, Jeremy!

Why not learn more from Jeremy at PSFK Conference San Francisco on July 17?

We’re excited to have Ezra Cooperstein, Vice President of VC2’s Development and Production at Current TV, on our “Collaboration & Co-Working” panel at PSFK Conference San Francisco 2008. Alongside Andrew Hoppin of NASA, Cooperstein will be sharing his insights on how collaboration can be utilized to engage the community.

First, who are you and what do you do?

My name is Ezra Cooperstein, and I oversee the Viewer Created Content (VC2) Team at Current TV. VC2 is the foundation of Current’s programming strategy. Since its inception, Current has been dedicated to sharing it’s TV platform with it’s viewers to create authentic, diverse, powerful, and compelling non-fiction news and information content geared toward a young-adult audience. My job is leading a talent team who facilitate the process of actualizing the vision of VC2 to bring amazing programming to air everyday.

You’ll be speaking on our “Collaboration & Co-Working” panel. Can you sum up your views on how you (and current) engage your audience and the community through co-working/collaboration?

Everything at Current is open to participation and collaboration with our viewers. While VC2 is the most prominent way that we collaborate with our consumers to create content, we continue to expand the opportunities for user participation. We recently re-launched Current.com as a social news site that puts the control of our hourly news headlines franchise in the hands of our community. Thus, the offering on TV more accurately reflects what our users think is newsworthy. The VC2 group relies on a vast network of producer relationships all over the world to help us bring compelling content to Current TV. While the door at Current is always open for anyone to submit a story, we have found that we are only as strong as the network of creators we build. Our internal producers spend lots of time cultivating connections with potential or existing VC2 Producers, and work closely with them to ensure they deliver the highest quality and most compelling content.

Five sites that provide you with inspiration:

Rotten Tomatoes
YouTube
Saatchi Gallery
YTMND-Another Blue Ball Factory
Mashable

Thanks, Ezra!

If you’d like to learn more from Ezra, why not join us on July 17 at PSFK Conference San Francisco 2008?

The latest pick of top jobs at our listings site.

Jr. Trends Researcher, Trendbuero
Hamburg : Identify trends, develop solutions

Publisher / SVP of Sales, BlackBook
New York : Creative entrepreneur intuitively knows what’s cool

Digital Strategist, Ogilvy PR
Chicago : Knows the difference between Web 1.0 and Web 2.0

Creative Director, GERMAINE
Antwerp : Create a reputation

http://jobs.psfk.com

Josh Morenstein, Design Director of fuseproject, will be joining our “Making Inspiration Matter” panel at PSFK Conference San Francisco 2008. Along with Frank Striefler (TBWA\Chiat Day), Eric Corey Freed of organicARCHITECT and moderated by Gareth Kay (Modernista), the panel will discuss how inspiration can be used to create change.

First, who are you and what do you do?

My name is Josh Morenstein. As the Design Director at fuseproject, I run a creative team of about 30 people which is composed of brand strategists, architects and fashion, product and graphic designers. In between leading projects, I make sure every project in the studio is surpassing the clients’ goals.

You’ll be speaking on our “Making Inspiration Matter” panel. Can you sum up your views on how you and others take inspiration and create change in your industry and beyond?

I used to keep a sketchbook next to my bed because as I was falling asleep, I would get ideas and I was afraid I wouldn’t remember them when I woke the next day. Thankfully, I’m not quite that tightly wound these days. Instead, I now trust that ideas and creativity will come. To be fair, this question is a bit ‘bigger’ than one paragraph but I will say that inspiration is about ideas… hopefully good ones. As a designer, I try to take these good ideas—the ones that push or evolve the way we see things and shape them into products and stories that resonate with people.

Five sites that provide you with inspiration:

The Sartorialist
Dezeen
MoCo Loco
flickr
ffffound

Thanks, Josh!

fuseproject

Why not hear more from Josh at PSFK Conference San Francisco 2008?

Frank Striefler, Director of Media Art Planning at TBWA\Chiat Day, will be joining our “Making Inspiration Matter” panel at the PSFK Conference San Francisco 2008. Along with Eric Corey Freed of organicARCHITECT, Josh Morenstein of fuseproject and moderator Gareth Kay (Modernista), the panel will discuss how inspiration can be used to create change.

First, who are you and what do you do?

I am Director of Media Art Planning at TBWA\Chiat Day. In my network role, I help TBWA to evolve Account Planning to help crack the code on how to build brands in the 21st century. At TBWA\Chiat, I help in orchestrating Total Brand Behavior for the clients in the LA office.

With Media Arts being best described as ‘Art of Brand Behavior’, my role is to inform & inspire the strategic & creative development to move the agency from creating messages –> content & brand behavior. Identifying how the brand should behave in culture and treating ‘media’ as “any space between an idea and an audience”.

You’ll be speaking on our “Making Inspiration Matter” panel. Can you sum up how you’ve taken inspiration and made change within your industry and on a larger scale as well?

I believe a curious mind is like a sponge that can take inspiration from anywhere: from learning from success stories & pioneering brands to actually stepping away from anything work related. This said, I think it’s a common misconception when people think that inspiration arrives as a sort of thunderbolt moment of creativity. The truth is, almost nothing is created out of thin air. If you start with nothing, you have to invent everything from scratch.

Since we’re in the creative business, inspiration is not an occasional luxury – it’s a job skill we need to apply daily. And I see knowledge as key in making connections nobody has made before. And the biggest change and contribution is the move from understanding all the things a brand could do in this ever-changing media arts landscape – to what brands actually should do.

Five sites that provide you with inspiration:

Contagious Magazine
IF! (seriously - not just since you guys put on the conference)
Influx Insights
Trend Watching
plus 129 more links from my bookmarks on del.icio.us

Thanks, Frank!

TBWA\Chiat Day

Want to hear more from Frank? Hurry up and get your tickets to PSFK Conference San Francisco 2008!