Wise Elephant, along with some really sharp thinkers/writers/doers, recently started a side project called Sundayed. Jason Moriber had a vision for a site that would publish content to sink your teeth into, the good stuff you have time to savor on a lazy Sunday afternoon. After talking with others and recruiting contributors, sundayed launched with the basic premise of delivering provocative weekend reading.

The content in the first week included a personal story about birthday melancholy by Francine McKenna, a piece on the Ontological-Hysteric Theater by Timothy Braun and a futuristic lesson from Ben Kunz. The second edition included a book review of The Shallows by Maximio Zeledon, a piece about monetizing passion for college football by Scott Henderson and my own story about losing a friend. You can expect more of this: all ranges of topics, intended to spark thought for your weekend enjoyment. Look for posts from Jason, Sheila Shidnia, Renata Lemos and more in the coming weeks.

Please stop by Sundayed, comment on a post or send us a note telling us what you think. We’re also open to new contributors. Send us an email to info @ sundayed.com with your name, brief bio, and a description of the posts you’d like to contribute

Other ways to show Sundayed some love:
Grab the RSS feed
Follow @Sundayed on twitter
Like on Facebook

About Sundayed:

Sundayed.com is a short menu of provocative weekend reading.  It’s a platform for our contributors to discuss/illustrate/define/opine on topics that relate to their current arena. The themes are “in the now,” relevant to what is happening in their lives. The tone is based on what you’d expect from Sunday newspaper editorials, but with a little more juice. We’ll also feature posts about thought leaders, heroes, and influencers.

I did my best to replicate the content of my Pecha Kucha 9 presentation. The loose theme of the evening was focused on book & public libraries. In Indianapolis there is current debate to cut library funding. My presentation pointed out two ways which could help boost the profile and revenues of the local public library system. Please let me know your comments and questions by posting them in the comments section below this post. Thanks!

Pecha Kucha 9: Libraries are the Core to Economic Prosperity from jason moriber on Vimeo.

Thank you for sharing your thoughts on our post about library closures and the upcoming Pecha Kucha event.

We have complimentary tickets to Pecha Kucha Volume 9 for:
Ryan Cox, who shared that “Our youth is a very fragile lump of clay. How we choose to mold that clay is imperative.”

Jessica Paris, who pointed out that “…the community doesn’t embrace all that the library has to offer. A library is a place for books, but it is so much more than that.”

Cara Dafforn, who asked “Will we define our city, county and community by denying access to information to our most at risk children?”

Josh Taylor, who added that “…those who can’t afford to rent movies can still have date nights.”

Each of you have received an email with details about your ticket. We look forward to continuing the discussion at Big Car Gallery this Friday.

See more in our previous post about Pecha Kucha 9.

Due to budget shortfalls, Indianapolis residents are facing the possibility of 6 public libraries being shuttered. Public meetings on the topic have drawn large crowds as residents speak up to save the libraries. Read more about the possible closures here and here.

One upcoming local event, Pecha Kucha 9, plans to delve into the topic with discussion of what our libraries and books mean to our society. If you aren’t familiar with Pecha Kucha, which means “chit-chat” in Japanese, is a grassroots movement started by architects and designers to remedy long-winded lectures and frivolous presentations.

They describe it best on their site: In one corner, the presenters at Pecha Kucha have only six minutes and forty seconds to convey their idea, with twenty slides at twenty seconds each, whether they like it or not. In the other corner, a well-stocked bar. And in the middle: you. The two corners will compete for your attention; get a drink and you’ve missed what could be the most influential idea of your career. Pay attention and you’ll miss your third or fourth drink. Conversation among the audience, especially during timid presentations, is encouraged. Business presentation, meet rock show. Bullet points, meet fight club.

We’re looking for commentary, written or visual, that makes us think (please, no comments that just say you want the tickets). It can be as long or short as you need to make your point. We’ve got 5 tickets to give away which will be awarded by a random drawing of all the comments submitted. The commenting period is open until Wednesday, May 19th at noon eastern. We’ll announce the winners and repost their contribution on the Wise Elephant blog on Thursday, May 20 by 10 a.m. eastern.

Seating is limited – please buy tickets early by clicking here. Tickets are $20, or $16 per ticket for groups of four. Cash only accepted at the door. All proceeds for Volume Nine of Pecha Kucha Indy will go towards a fund to ensure that every library in Indianapolis stays open.

Open beer bar. Homemade pretzels from Indianapolis’ best pretzel bakery: Taste of Philly.

Social Media Marketing: Listen, Engage, and Broadcast

A Seminar lead by Jason Moriber of Wise Elephant

- Presented by APA New York
- Sponsored by Agency Access and Dripbook

Monday, May 17
Calumet Photographic
22 W 22nd St
New York, NY 10010

Doors 6:30 p.m.
Seminar 7-9 p.m.

Event description:
This seminar will provide useful background on the social media arena (Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn, and more), offer tactical and strategic advice, delve into some case studies, and offer short and long term action items to help your marketing take advantage of these digital arenas.

Social Media fosters greater connectivity and person-to-person communications than traditional marketing channels can offer. It empowers your strengths and provides a platform for growth. Not only are more and more people using social networks to promote themselves, there are also more and more people “listening” to social networks in order to research and learn about opportunities, contacts, and trends. Have you ever “googled” someone before meeting with them in person? Then you’re “listening” to social media.  You’re seeking the digital traces of that person. Question is, are you cultivating your own digital traces? What happens when someone seeks to learn more about you and your skills? Let’s put a plan in place that builds up your digital traces, allowing your contacts to find you, learn more, and build a direct connection.

REGISTRATION LINKS
FREE to the first 25 APA Members
rsvp@apany.com

$10 APA Members
$15 Non-Members
REGISTER HERE

Have questions? Submit them in advance by Monday, May 10!
Contact Jason via email jm@wiseelephant.com or Twitter @jelefant Hashtag: #apanySM

To stay organized I make lists for work related, as well as personal tasks. If I write it down, I know it will get done because I need to mark it off of the list. For the past several weeks, I’ve been using TeuxDeux, a dead-simple, web-based list maker.

I’ve always been a notebook list maker.  Something about marking items off with ink has always felt incredibly satisfying, no matter if the task is small or large. I’ve known plenty of people that go so far as to add tasks to their list after completion, just to be able to scratch them off.

I’ve never been able to stick with a digital task manager or list maker exclusively. I’ve used them here and there, and yet, I’ve always kept a companion paper list. When not TeuxDeuxing, my top picks for list making are a Moleskine notebook with a fine point Sharpie or Sharpie pen, or less often with a Mirado Black Warrior  pencil.

I have to say, so far, I’ve really enjoyed TeuxDeux, designed by swissmiss and built by FictiveKin. I’m not sure what I like best  – the clean design and simplicity, or that the way it strikes though tasks conjures the same type of satisfaction I find in pen and paper. Either way, it has earned a bookmark in my toolbar. While right now TeuxDeux is pretty bare bones (part of its charm, I say), their FAQ hints at upcoming mobile apps and additional features, such as being able to jump back and forth through time more quickly and adding additional viewing options. It is worth checking out if you want something very simple.

Now that I’ve fully geeked-out about my list making, please do tell. What do you use to make your lists?

You know those moments when you stumble upon a little innovation and wonder why no one thought of it before?

Let me explain. Have you ever noticed that it isn’t easy to get a pickle or olive out of an emptying jar without a utensil, or perhaps the unitasking pickle picker that Rachel Ray says, “sounds kind of dirty, doesn’t it?”  Yep. Who wants to add a unitasker into the kitchen anyway? So, we tip the jar and spill a little pickle juice (or do the sane thing and use a fork in the first place).

I bought a jar of cornichons recently, and discovered it came equipped with a small handled scoop. Nothing major, just a (hopefully recyclable?) bit of green plastic that made quick and easy work of extracting little gherkins out of the jar. Of course, it is just a jar of cornichons, and yet Maille has found a way to surprise and delight with a simple innovation.

Whatever your line of work is, think about the small stumbling blocks that make it harder to do business with you. Do you have barriers that make the experience a little less joyful, more awkward? Are there some ways you could change a small thing to make a big impression? Do you have a pickle picker on your hands?

This note on how to define “local,” especially when it comes to marketing, is pulled from a LinkedIn discussion I’m taking part in here: LINK.

We need new words to cover these intricacies. The historic “local” is defined by proximity. The associative local is defined by relationship. My reading of the undertone is that there is a greater shift towards the historical local which is burgeoning on the associative one. There seems to be new interest (and potential cash flows) in providing services/platforms for the historical local. Yes, this first wave is food, but craft is not too far behind (which is followed by commerce). This could be how the middle classes rebuild themselves.

On the associative front, rather than think of your product/service as needing to be marketed, the shift is to be organic/mercurial and create/recreate your product and/or service to match the needs of the market. This is a “local” behavior. Twitter changes its service based on the needs/suggestions of its users. Starbucks adds instant coffee at the same time it opens locally branded coffee shops. Marketing nationally to your associative local requires the extremes, either your a niche or you’re a blanket.

During filmmaker Astra Taylor’s interview with philosopher Avital Ronell they touch on photography and film as a capturing, an archiving, and a deadening. Ronell describes taking images as:

“…a kind of concession to a traumatic theory of existence, which is to say you are not truly present in your experience. It first has to be captured or deadened and then presented to you from the Other…what you see in the photograph gets reconstituted as what may have happened.”

Right, that doesn’t sound very sexy but its poignant stuff. If an artist can more deeply understand what makes their work “good” ideally they can make their work even better. My belief is, to make better work, the artist needs to escape the “deadened” nature of “capturing images,” and strive for “creating images.” So what makes a good photograph? What makes it attractive? What makes it professional-quality?

There are probably dozens of answers to this question, but what seems to be the answer is how “alive” the image is, how much can it stand on it’s own, does it have “a life of its own.” I’ve drawn this quick matrix to help define good/bad/mediocre images…

The coordinates on the matrix are:

- Vibrant: The image is alive, it speaks to you, moves you.
- Lifeless: Flat, no emotional draw, yawn.
- Arresting: I can’t take me eyes off of it (this doesn’t equal “good,” shocking images can be arresting).
- Mundane: This looks like everything else.

The imagery I find the strongest lives in the top right corner. I have a personal preference for images that take the mundane and make them vibrant, so I tend to hang out in the bottom right hand corner.

Where do your images fit?