Alan Gutierrez

Read Hugh MacLeod’s post on The Pourous Membrane after Dave Coustan told me that he used the image in a presentation on corporate blogging. Read through the concept, then consider how it applies to Louisiana politics. We talk about transparency, a word that has become as meaningless as empowerment. What we need is permeability. In Louisiana, the membrane between the internal conversation and the external conversation is made of latex.

Hugh MacLeod on Business Porn

Business Porn is just like Ordinary Porn or Real Estate Porn, except instead of it being about the women we wished we could sleep with, or the houses we wish we owned, it’s about all those cool, lucrative, exciting jobs and businesses that we wish we had, instead of the normal, tedious, schleppy crap most of us end up doing to pay the bills.

How many times have you seen a reporter say, “Shirley Tibedeaux, you’ve lost your home and you now have no health insurance. How do you feel?”

[response]

“There you have it, Jim. Now back to you.”

The term disaster porn coined by my friend Christian Roselund to describe Katrina journalism.

Like Hugh’s concept, except that it appeals to us in a way that is perfectly purient.

Rather than helping victims or understanding the complexity, we’re invited to share their emotions, from the comfort of our homes, feel their pain, and having done our part stay tuned for the sports roundup.

Scobleizer - Microsoft Geek Blogger » I gotta take more days off

Speaking of fun stuff, yeah, Microsoft did the iPod box design parody video. Yes, we can laugh at ourselves. The marketing team did it to challenge the box designers for our products to do better. We need more of this stuff. Microsoft is a consensus culture and consensus (which means everyone has to sign off on things) does avoid trouble, but it also makes for uninspired products and marketing. That is our internal challenge to figure out, that’s for sure!

Microsoft can laugh at itself now? That’s not the Microsoft we all know and loathe. The iPod packaging parody was one of the funnier things I’ve come across lately. Pleased to hear that it was an internal production. What an excellent way for frustrated creatives to make a point to the company at large, by being creative.

In case you missed it, here’s the iPod box parody video.

Add this to the recent Microsoft blogger invervention to fix Hugh’s Wifi. A Microsoft blogger Kieth Combs caught his rants and troubleshot his hardware. Turned out to be hardware issue, not a Microsoft issue.

Microsoft is uniquely poised to leverage the blogosphere for customer service. They’ve been snapping up talent these many years, and now their setting these folks loose.

It’s customer service mayhem.

The Global Microbrand has been working well for John T. Unger.

john t. unger studio: The Power of Blogs

I’ve done three interviews for magazines and websites this week. The Sprint Ambassador Program is sending me a free cell phone with six months of free service. School children write emails from overseas asking about my art for school reports they’re doing. HGTV contacted me a while back about possibly featuring my work on their show, Offbeat America (it doesn’t look like it will happen this time, but it’s still pretty cool to be asked). I’ve also met a lot of incredibly cool people this year that I consider to be good friends despite never having seen them in person.

Almost all of this has come about because of the time I’ve put in writing blogs. The only drawback has been that at times, the response becomes so overwhelming that I don’t take the time to post about it here. I’m working on that.

This comes via Hugh MacLeod and his post John T. Unger and Global Microbrand. Hugh MacLeod has been kindly producing top notch marketing material for my new web design business in New Orleans. When I talk to people about the power of blogging, I show them English Cut, for starters, and Stormhoek. Now I’ll add John T. Unger as a case study.

This is timely since I’m working on creating a blog for a New Orleans artist, Adam Farrington, and his gallery the Farrington Smith Gallery. (A shameless plug, but with no Google Juice, since the site isn’t up yet. We’re going to hurry.)

Can’t wait to share this with Adam, Scott, and Amy over at the gallery. Thanks John and Hugh.