Strands of Genius: How To Rebrand A Country, Mental Health & Media, Protein That Comes From Thin Air, This Is Water
plus: our thoughts on freedom, finding meaning, David Foster Wallace
WRITING FROM | Greenville, SC
WORKING ON | our May webinar: Beyond Boring Briefs!
LOOKING AHEAD
April 16-May 22: Greenville, SC
:: WHAT’S NEW & WEEKLY GRATITUDE ::
May the 4th be with you. This week we were supposed to fly from Facebook’s offices in London to a conference in Toronto, and then back to Mexico City where we’d meet up with friends for a vacation. Instead, today marks our 49th day in quarantine. We’re bummed, but we’re also finding our cohabitation situation a dream come true, all things considered. So, you know, swings and roundabouts.
This week, we’re especially thankful for:
Never Have I Ever (& Mindy Kaling in general), fire pits, vegetable gardens, homemade salsa, hand poured candles, gardening and fence building, prickly plant destroying, and of course, YOU!
THE SCHOOL OF STOLEN GENIUS PRESENTS
BEYOND BORING BRIEFS
Tuesday, May 26th: 9a PT / 12p ET / 5p GMT
It’s been our most requested presentation, ever since we initially delivered it. We’ve helped big agencies, small agencies, red agencies, and blue agencies re-think their briefs and briefing process. (And admittedly, have had far too much fun than we expected in the process.)
The only way you’ll be able to see the presentation is by signing up for the Silver, Gold or Corporate memberships for The School of Stolen Genius, which is our experiment in building community and more in-depth learning opportunities. FRIENDSOFGS will get you 15% off our individual membership tiers, and we’re hoping that if you work for someone else we can help you expense this. For agencies that purchase a corporate membership, we’ll offer a Q&A for you and your teams in the weeks following — so that you can put the practices from the presentation to life within your organization. Let’s do this!!!
:: THE LINKS ::
HOW TO REBRAND A COUNTRY | EXCERPT & KEY LEARNINGS
A few excerpts strung together from this New York Times article on how to rebrand a country: “Twenty years ago, an opinion writer for The New York Times described Colombia as a country dominated by “drug killings, paramilitary massacres, guerrilla kidnappings, death squad murders and street crime.’” … “More than 3 million visitors went to Colombia in 2017, a 200 percent increase from 2006, and the country has been ranked as a leading destination on dozens of travel lists, including the 2018 52 Places to Go list.” … “Colombia began its rebranding efforts in 2008 with a series of videos that showcased the country’s beaches, jungles, cities and mountains. Each video included the phrase “el riesgo es que te quieras quedar” — “the risk is that you’ll want to stay” — a play on the country’s image as a haven of drugs and violence.”
Some key points that stuck out - that would absolutely work for other brands too:
+ You can't run from your past. But you can point out that you're never defined by just one thing.
+ Use what people are thinking of your brand to help reframe.
+ There's a bigger system at play. How often do your clients (or you) focus only on what your brand is communicating? In tourism, it's often about getting flights into/out of the country. It doesn't matter if you have all the publicity in the world if the barrier to entry is too high.
+ Remember that it can be a slow burn -- When you're shifting the tides significantly, it's not going to be an overnight win. (New York Times)
WHAT HAPPENS WHEN A TV PRESENTER DIES BY SUICIDE?
The presenter of UK television show Love Island, died by suicide in February. As author and mental health campaigner Matt Haig wrote: “If a celebrity dies by suicide after a massive media onslaught this is manslaughter via the press. The media love ticking boxes and doing their mental health campaigns but fail to take any accountability when they impact people’s health.” Nicola Kemp adds, “We can’t find the words to talk about mental health and grief but we have a whole new lexicon with which to understand the cross-platform, multi-media web of hate.” As marketers, and creators and curators of culture, we have to do better. (Mediatel)
PROTEIN DEVELOPED FROM THIN AIR USING NASA TECH
Back in the 1960s, NASA was researching how they could feed astronauts on a year-long mission, and of course they didn’t have the vertical gardens or 3D printers that exist today. They discovered microbes that could convert CO2 into a flavorless powder, which could be used to make food. Yes, really. And now the startup Air Protein is developing the powder into a meat alternative... (Business Insider)
:: WHAT WE’RE THINKING ABOUT: WHAT HAS MEANING::
The truth is, we don't know much about anyone else's situation. This is always true. The problem, of course, is that we tend to think we do. We make assumptions right and left, often without even pausing to consider how many assumptions we've made.
In my favorite ever graduation speech, David Foster Wallace says while liberal arts educations claim to teach you 'how to think' -- but actually, maybe, it's not "how to think" but giving you the choice of WHAT to think about.
"Here is just one example of the total wrongness of something I tend to be automatically sure of: everything in my own immediate experience supports my deep belief that I am the absolute centre of the universe; the realest, most vivid and important person in existence. We rarely think about this sort of natural, basic self-centredness because it’s so socially repulsive. But it’s pretty much the same for all of us. It is our default setting, hard-wired into our boards at birth. Think about it: there is no experience you have had that you are not the absolute centre of. The world as you experience it is there in front of YOU or behind YOU, to the left or right of YOU, on YOUR TV or YOUR monitor. And so on. Other people’s thoughts and feelings have to be communicated to you somehow, but your own are so immediate, urgent, real." - David Foster Wallace
By way of example, let's say you see a person not wearing a mask and you feel your blood pressure rising. You may think something like "This person is making it worse for me and my family, probably doesn't even have a mask, and is hosting people at their house every weekend." And you could be right.
But, what if, that person is coming from the car, where they got a phone call letting them know a close family member died? They brought their mask with them, and always wear it, but they left it in the car because they're in shock as they do the one grocery store run of the month.
Or, what if the person who isn't wearing a mask when you see them is someone who made a bad decision that day, but is responsible for slowing down a car that almost hit your kid when he/she was biking around the neighborhood?
Is it likely? Nope. But possible? Yes. And if that's possible, think of all the other nuanced situations that ARE possible.
Alternatively, maybe you hate the fact that places are closed. You see people outside wearing masks and you think they're making it worse for everyone. But what if, perhaps, the small business that is choosing to stay closed is the same one that donated to a fundraiser for your child's school or activities? What if that small business owner is terrified to stay open because he/she lost a family member due to someone not wearing protective gear? Again - is it likely? Not really, but it's certainly possible.
DFW says,"If you’re automatically sure that YOU KNOW what reality is, and you are operating on your default setting, then you, like me, probably won’t consider possibilities that *aren’t* annoying and miserable.
But if you really learn how to pay attention, then you will know there are other options. It will actually be within your power to experience a crowded, hot, slow, consumer-hell type situation as not only meaningful, but sacred, on fire with the same force that made the stars: love, fellowship, the mystical oneness of all things deep down.
Not that that mystical stuff is necessarily true. The only thing that’s capital-T True is that you get to decide how you’re gonna try to see it."
He goes on to say it's hard and it takes effort, but this is the freedom of education, that you consciously get to decide what has meaning and what doesn't. You get to decide what to worship -- and he points out that ALL of us worship something.
And it's not just worshipping people in the sky, or the lower case letter T. Worship money and you'll never have enough. Worship beauty and you'll always feel ugly. Worship power and you'll end up feeling afraid. Worship your intellect and you'll always feel stupid, or as if you're a fraud.
The problem is, these are our default settings. If we can't get in front of this thinking, we fall prey to it ourselves. And no one's going to stop you, because people in power are happy for you to worship all these things -- From the rabbis and priests to the makeup providers, these folks are operating in a capitalistic society and when they make you feel inadequate, you give them money. It works, so they keep doing it.
Here's the thing: There are ALLLLLLLLLLL kinds of freedom. The western world tends to focus on the freedom of wanting and achieving.
But DFW says, "The really important kind of freedom involves attention and awareness and discipline, and being able truly to care about other people and to sacrifice for them over and over in myriad petty, unsexy ways every day.
That is real freedom. The alternative is unconsciousness, the default setting, the rat race, the constant gnawing sense of having had, and lost, some infinite thing."
Again, it's hard, it takes energy to direct our attention and to try to see the light in someone, instead of the darkness. But, it's worth trying.
:: AND NOW… THIS IS WATER ::
>> The full transcript is here, on the Farnam Street blog.
If we can ever be of help to you, even outside of a formal engagement, please don’t hesitate to let us know. Getting to meet like-minded folks is one of the best parts of living nomadically, so please let us know if you see if we'll be in a city near you :)
rockON,
faris & rosie & ashley | your friends over at geniussteals.co
@faris is always tweeting
@rosieyakob hangs out on instagram
@ashley also writes for deaf, tattooed & employed
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It's called Genius Steals because we believe ideas are new combinations and that nothing can come from nothing. But copying is lazy. We believe the best way to innovate is to look at the best of that which came before and combine those elements into new solutions.
Co-Founders Faris & Rosie are award-winning strategists and creative directors, writers, consultants and public speakers who have been living on the road/runway since March 2013, working with companies all over the world. Our Director of Operations is nomadic like us, our accounting team is based out of Washington, our company is registered in Tennessee, and our collaborators are all over the world. Being nomadic allows us to go wherever clients need us to be, and to be inspired by the world in between.
Hit reply and let’s talk about how we might be able to work together :)