GreenXchange is a collaboration between Nike, Best Buy and the Creative Commons to create an open innovation platform that promotes the creation and adoption of processes and technologies in the areas of green design and sustainability. GreenXchange wants to engage individuals from across a variety of disciplines, from manufacturers and distributors to academics and stakeholders, in an effort to develop practices and strategies that are relevant not only to the business world, but could potentially have implications for institutions and communities as well.
Beyond the environmental aspect, this project is important because it shows a willingness on the part of corporations [...]

Three similar comments at recent talks gave us something to think about on the subject of advertising and its future. Speakers from Mozilla, Anomaly, and Thrillist all have discussed the same notion: that they don’t spend money on advertising.
At the Influx Curated event in San Francisco recently, Paul Kim who runs Mozilla’s marketing, talked about how the tech company turned to the community to help get the word out about their products and organizing ‘download drives’ on certain days.
At the PSFK Conference NYC 09 Carl Johnson of Anomaly talked about the IP projects his agency develop. He told the audience [...]

Some Monday morning inspiration, courtesy of this playful video for Japanese pop band Sour’s new song ‘Hibi no Neiro’ (Tone of Everyday). The collaborative effort involved fans from around the world and was shot entirely on webcam. This is a fantastic example of what can result from a bit of thoughtfully curated crowdsourcing.

[via Mike Arauz]

No matter how far architecture has advanced thanks to innovative designs and modern materials, much of its creative process is still stuck back in the 20th century, until now. Online startup Woobius offers a set of easy to use information sharing tools that have been developed by an architect to enable fast, intuitive collaboration.
Woobius’ features include an online ‘dropbox’ that allows file sharing between firms, and a ‘vault’ that allows for online collaborative document work—so that companies and architects around the world can stay on the same page while dealing with ongoing projects, no matter how complex. The site, which now boasts [...]

Our roving photographer Dave Pinter caught a lot of the action at our recent Good Ideas Salon as we mixed entrepreneurs and freelance creative professionals in a room together.
The gallery is on Flickr.
Thanks to everyone who attended. And if you’d like to host your own Good Ideas Salon, drop Hedyeh Parsia a line at hedyeh@psfk.com for more details.
Good Ideas Salons

Last Friday at the Art Directors Club in New York, Piers Fawkes of PSFK sat down for a panel discussion on contemporary collaboration with Mike Brown of Virgin Group, Ben Lerer, founder of Thrillist, Sam Lessin, CEO of drop.io, and Nate Westheimer, VP Product, anyClip.com & Organizer, NY Tech Meetup. The afternoon’s talk centered around creative collaboration in the realm of business and entrepreneurship, and how both creative individuals and business-oriented entities can profit from working around shared interests.

From the discussion emerged a common sentiment, introduced by Lerer, that smaller creative groups need to take advantage of and leverage what [...]

Whether or not you fully agree with the chosen terminology and accompanying ideology, we felt Kevin Kelly’s recent piece in Wired that examines the history and growth of what he calls online “socialism” takes an insightful look at the ways people are interacting in the digital realm. Kelly tracks the movement as it shifts from passive sharing information towards more active collaboration, a trend that is enabling greater innovation through decentralized forms of production. Examples of this include opensource efforts like Wikipedia and Boxee. He views this as a hybrid system that lands somewhere between a non-market and free market economy, [...]

For New York’s Internet Week 2009, PSFK will hold an event to help our peers and friends. Our Good Ideas in Collaboration Salon aims to introduce entrepreneurs who need help with out-of-work creative professionals who are looking for fresh opportunities (paid, unpaid or other).
Held in SoHo, the Good Ideas in Collaboration Salon will have a couple of talks, a panel and then a mixer which will include a market-place where creative professionals can find out about PSFK-selected projects run by entrepreneurs and offer their services.
We will also try our best to let the collaborators meet each other by pairing up [...]

PSFK has (just) decided to hold an event during Internet Week in NYC to help our peers and friends who, like us, are finding 2009 a little challenging. We are going to hold an event to introduce entrepreneurs who need help, with out-of-work creative professionals who need opportunities.
The Good Ideas in Collaboration salon will have a couple of talks, a panel and then a mixer which will include a market place where creative professionals can visit the projects of entrepreneurs. We will also try our best to let the collaborators meet each other by pairing up their details.
More information will [...]

Grand Rapids Michigan was the site of a massive public art project this past weekend. Thousands of participants used 30,000 multicolored sidewalk chalk sticks to draw all over several blocks of the city’s downtown. The first-ever Grand Rapids Chalk Flood, was organized by Rob Bliss, who has had similar success with other “urban experiments” like giant pillow fights and zombie walks. A wide variety of people joined in the joyful street art event, which brought the community together, and brought tons of extra business to local shops. Check out Mlive’s extensive coverage, or the video below for more.

Photo by Katy [...]

We’re looking forward to having Carl Johnson, partner at Anomaly, join us at PSFK Conference New York on April 2. Carl will be part of our panel discussion about the pursuit of intellectual property and how it’s changing the way agencies and new businesses operate. He will be joined in discussion by Bart Haney (fuseproject), Robbie Vitrano (Trumpet), Ben Malbon (BBH Labs), and moderator Danielle Sacks (Fast Company).
First, who are you and what do you do?
Carl Johnson.
Partner at Anomaly.
I’m trying, with my Partners, to create a company that doesn’t look like one that has existed before…that has no boundaries…that is [...]

This past January PSFK held Good Ideas Salon in London, bringing together the most forward-thinking tastemakers, innovators, and experts from around the world to discuss key areas steering innovation and opportunity. The last panel of the day focused on Good Ideas Through Collaboration, where Colin Nagy (PSFK / Attention) moderated a talk between Pat Connor (BBC), Jeremy Ettinghausen (Penguin), Sophie Howarth (The School of Life), and Simon Waldman (The Guardian).
While the idea of collaboration is nothing new, the way we use it are still being developed and reinterpreted. Jeremy Ettinghausen noted that collaboration is relatively new in relation [...]

Best-selling author James Patterson is taking part in a writing project in partnership with Random House and Borders Australia that combines elements from the pulpy serialized novels of the past with the modern twist of audience sourced collaboration to create what is being called the world’s first chain thriller - a genre fit for the digital age. Patterson has written the first and last chapters of the new book AirBorne and 28 fans will be chosen from their 750 word submissions to complete the rest. Each winner will receive a print edition of the finished book – for the time being at [...]

Pat Connor, Vision Executive of BBC, will be speaking on our Good Ideas Through Collaboration panel at the PSFK Good Ideas Salon London. Along with Sophie Howarth of The School of Life, Jeremy Ettinghausen of Penguin, and moderator Colin Nagy of PSFK / Attention, the panel will discuss how collaborative creation results in better businesses and ideas.
First, who are you and what do you do?
Pat has three men at home—Paul and their two sons, Ash and Evan. She can’t quite shake off the need to do homework and has recently done a Masters Degree in Film and an RHS foundation [...]

A recent article in the New York Times highlighted a really great organization called NYC Resisitor. It’s a group of tech hackers who have gotten together and created a workshop in downtown Brooklyn for all kinds of like-minded tinkerers to meet up, work on projects and learn from each other. Called a “creative community for nerds” by one of it’s members, Resistor provides a convivial club-like atmosphere (complete with drink serving robot) along with space and tools to create high-tech projects like circuit board cockroaches and a sweatshirt with built in camera. To help pay the rent, they also teach [...]