Future vs. Present, GLOVES OFF.

Last night I had the privilege of going to a live concert performed by one of my favorite artists, The Tallest Man Earth. He's a master of tone, verbal inflection, lyricism, finger-picking. His music is the kind that speaks directly to your heart. It's simple and soulful. I've posted one of my favorite songs, Love Is All, here so that you, too, can relish the depth of feeling in this track.

When he started plucking the intro during the concert, I was thrilled. Not Beiber-fever thrilled, but excited, at least. So I jockeyed for a line of sight in my twenty first standing row in the back. You know how you can weasel in-between tall people to get a peek of the attraction, looking over their shoulder but under the earlobe? I did that. I squirmed my way into a respectable sight line. This was hands-down my favorite track and I just felt so lucky to hear it from his mouth, live. Not surprisingly, though, I wasn't the only one. Just as I braced myself to freeze ideal peeking position for four minutes, a hand shot up through the crowd. Muting my hard-earned view. It looked like this:


See, through the glory of the inter-webs, I was able to use Youtube to share with you what I was missing during the actual experience. So, that's what The Tallest Man On Earth is like live. If you're close enough. Otherwise, if you're in the back, you're gonna get my view. It's precisely because I could share that video with you, that I couldn't see it when I was there. Is that a worthy trade?

While I refrained from yelling expletives, this time, I thought about the raging battle between future and present. I understand why this D-BAG was filming our favorite song with his iPhone. He: is sending it to someone who couldn't BE there, wants to show his friends or watch it LATER, wants to post it on YOUTUBE. There are a lot of reasons, but it sure as hell wasn't because he likes to stick his arm up and hold it perfectly still while listening to live music. It's not like he better understands the performance by receiving vibrations through his forearm.

When my LIVE experience gets shafted because of some non-existent FUTURE BENEFIT, I gotta say, enough. I go to concerts so I can enjoy an experience that will never happen again. An experience that is impossible to re-live or re-create. Sure, you can see what it was like online, but it will never be that. Why would you watch an artist on Youtube anyways? Probably to get a sense about whether you want to see them live. This moment just too perfectly framed how we are, in fact, losing the power of the moment. I think that we're so in love with it, we're afraid to let it go. But, to quote the Tao te Ching, "Grasp, and it will slip through your fingers." We keep grabbing and pulling, trying to keep it all. Trying to make it last when, really, we're just denying the inevitable. The concert will end and you will have to work, work to find another artist you like. Or wait, wait, to see The Tallest Man on Earth again. These are the physical properties of the world that you cannot deny. We're compromising the joy of the moment so that we may live a little of it over again in the future.

Sure, I've been guilty of filming or photographing an event instead of raptly watching. And, when I'm done, I find myself trying to remember what just happened. It's like reading a book while you're thinking about something else. You have to go back and re-read the pages you turned absent-mindedly. It's like thinking about your own issues while a friend is talking to you. "What? I'm sorry, say that again?" You're missing the point of the interaction.

I love taking pictures and video. I'm a sentimentalist. In middle school, I made scrapbooks like nobody's business, don't get me wrong. Keeping parts of an experience is incredibly romantic. But when it gets in the way of being there, get over it. Put the camera down. Live a little. Live for today because tomorrow might never come. Now if you've read through this rant, run the ringer with me, come full circle, and you say, "But Rachel, why are you freaking out, you can just watch it on Youtube." Then you, my friend, have a problem. And I don't feel bad snapping that ONE picture because it was a crappy moment I didn't need to be fully present for. Hypocritical? I'm only a human being.


[If you think this future-oriented idea is interesting, check out this animated lecture by RSA. It talks about the differences of time orientation between cultures and is very insightful.]

Orhiginal's DroidX Review!

Holla! Just today I got my little hands on the new DroidX and here's my non-developer, not tech nerd, first-time-smart-phone owner opinion:

1 Awesome

2 To quote the lady in front of me at the Verizon store, "it's a big ass phone". The screen is enormous, but the phone is surprisingly thin. It's definitely a back- pocket rider.

3 Men men men. From the visual appeal (wallpaper, black and red color palette) to the sheer size, I gotta admit that it was designed wih men in mind. Because of the top-heavy (hd)camera, trying to hold the phone upright and type with my miniature hands is already causing a cramp. Little hands, steele yourself.

4 Coming from the mac background, I can finally, truly understand the debate between iPhone vs. Other. The iP is easier for me to use and understand. The otions on my new phone are numerous and equally confusing.

5 I can't get four square to work yet. Either that's my bad, or they haven't caught up with droid yet. Either way, bummer.

6 I'm writing this post via app for the first time ever, and that's pretty groovy.

Published with Blogger-droid v1.4.7

Fast as a New York Week...

Just a couple weeks ago a group of students representing the UO Ad program packed their bags to terrorize New York, the city. On last year's trip I was extremely busy working on a client pitch for the student competition and a detailed presentation to BBH. This year, I decided to get the dirty work out of the way first (one presentation to BBH about SXSWi takeaways) and otherwise hit the city and see what it would come back at me with. Upcoming UO Ad generations [take heed], magnanimous readers and my one follower [ I salute you], here's my take on one New York week:

a—Top three pieces of advice
You’ll be defined by your last greatest feat, make sure it’s something you’re proud of.

Play in analog. It will make you stand out.

When you move to NYC, it never stops. It’s like the responsible Vegas.

b—Top three experiences
Jazz, baby. This time around, I made sure to save some time for the things I am passionate about, like live jazz. There’s a fine line between shirking your responsibilities and striking out on your own: toe it. Don’t be afraid to abandon the safety of the group for something that’s really important to you.

Making friends outside of my immediate group. I know it sounds cheesy, but really! It feels good to know that you’ve got different people you get along with and you’re not stuck anywhere. The trip is a great chance to make connections with other students as well as professionals.

Gleaning a few twitter nods from established professionals by tweeting about connections I saw during the UnConference. You just have to think, and put it out there. If you’re on to something, people will notice.

c—What do you know about agencies now that you didn't know before
Agency leadership goes to a lot of conferences, adult learning summer camps.

A lot of places want to know if they are a good fit for you. The more personal the recruiting process gets, the more agencies start to care about you as a person. One of the first things recruiters or job leads would always ask me was, “where do you want to work?” I couldn’t tell them “anywhere” because that would sound lazy, and since they were taking the time to get to know me, I should make it worth their while. So give it some thought before you’re ready to approach people.

Sometimes it's a bother for students to show up at their office with presentations that are irrelevant to their immediate jobs. This is something you could guess, and I’m not saying it’s everybody, and big-thinkers are always open to new ideas, but I heard it while walking through a revolving door into the building.

d—A couple of beautiful moments
Riding on Gabe’s shoulders.

Reconnecting with a Swede who beat me out last year. Great guy, Rassmus. He insisted I email him this time.

Presenting at BBH. Admittedly, we didn’t bring it like last year but sharing your original perspective and getting feedback is what being a student is all about. I wouldn’t have felt comfortable going off and pursuing jazz shows until I knew that I had contributed to the task at hand.

Michael Jordan, the Person

So I just started following Michael Jordan on Twitter. It's refreshing how he tweets like a normal person, with no ulterior motive to the ultra social tool.


And now I know that, in my line of work, whenever I think about morning coffee dependents, I'm also thinking about Michael Jordan. I also know that we even share some opinions in common: Why LOST is useless as popular entertainment.

Me and Michael, man. Try that on for size.

It All Makes Sense Now: A Week at SXSWi

It's one day after SXSWi. I've stopped thinking of everything in # tags. I've had time to take a breather and enjoy the sunshine in my own state. After a good night's sleep, I woke up refreshed and inspired.

Suddenly, the magnitude of the festival sunk into my brain. Like any other festival, you go for the whole experience. That's why you spend a week eating, drinking, excreting digital instead of listening to podcasts. The real value of SXSW is total immersion. It's like a meditation retreat, except the opposite. Instead of surrounding yourself with nothing, you're surrounded by everything. And although I had I considered myself an informed student, I came back speaking a new language. I have a new take on communication and social trends.

• Yes, you need to make a mobile app; put a concept and strategy in your portfolio.
• Yes, brands need to expand in relevant ways; not just expand.
• Yes, social mobile is here to stay; and it's having a baby with the "real" world. Get used to it.

The experience reinforced some things I already knew: people are still people, with idiosyncrasies, even if they're an engineer for Google mobile. "Audiences" are participants and it's time to start treating them like friends, not targets. But I also learned some new themes: Screen size really does dictate expected depth of interaction. The digital disparity between have's and have not's is wide—there is a lot of opportunity in less recognized niches. "Open" is a door, while "transparent" is a window.

Now, after the festival, I can think in both channels of media development and themes of humanity. It was like learning Mandarin in school, but never really understanding how to use it until you live in Beijing. At SXSW, doing everything media connected [Twitter, Facebook, FourSquare, Gowalla, Apps, QR codes] was the norm and, frankly, overwhelming. But now that I'm back in the leisurely pace of normal life, I can refine my value of all the new media options. I can translate between Mandarin and English, I can see the beauty in the venn diagram space between high-tech and daily motion.

While waiting for a nice cold coffee at Vero in Eugene, I downloaded Gowalla [it did beat FourSquare, after all] on my iPod. And a rush of understanding swept over me. SXSW changed me in the biggest way possible— ideologically. I came back a believer in the power of digital, especially mobile; equipped and ready to enter the rapidly evolving scene of digital communication.

(From our University of Oregon SXSW blog. Check it out for more reads from Evan Schultz, Isaac Viel, Nicole Schultz, Marq Blaine and myself.)