Digital Hive: Evan & The Almighty Forest

What we're reading for inspiration

Gerald Zaltman: How Customers Think: Essential Insights into the Mind of the Market
We heart Jerry. His groundbreaking methods reveal the true drivers of customer behavior. You'll never be satisfied with a focus group again. (*****)
Ben McConnell: Citizen Marketers: When People Are the Message
Could we heart this book (and its authors) more? NO. Essential reading for anyone in marketing in 2007.
Martha Barletta: Marketing to Women: How to Understand, Reach, and Increase Your Share of the World's Largest Market Segment
Fantastic description of the biological drivers of the differences between how men and women think and behave.
Radu Stern: Against Fashion: Clothing as Art, 1850-1930
Fascinating description of how fashion expressed underlying social values and tensions. Wonderful visual history of fashion in the western world 1850-1930.
Eric Ericson: Design for Impact: Fifty Years of Airline Safety Cards
A fascinating visual history of how graphic designers have tried to equip airline passengers for disaster
Charles Yang: The Infinite Gift: How Children Learn and Unlearn the Languages of the World
Fascinating description of how humans learn language skills.
Sina Najafi: Cabinet 22: Insecurity (Art and Culture)
Cabinet magazine (it's a quarterly) is a provocative roundup of interesting cultural phenomena
Ron Galella: Disco Years
A larger than life homage to the personalities and habits of Studio 54's most infamous patrons. A fascinating document of American culture's excess and quest for self expression.
Adam Morgan: The Pirate Inside: Building a Challenger Brand Culture Within Yourself and Your Organization
What can we say, we heart Adam Morgan. A primer on how to blow up the old push marketing approach to brand and substitute a customer-driven "listening" approach.
Bruce Sterling: Shaping Things
A manifesto for the future of design, impeccably crafted by Bruce Sterling and ehnahced by the delicately emphatic graphic intelligence of Lorraine Wild.

May 30, 2007

Evan & The Almighty Forest

For Evan Almighty (Steve Carell’s upcoming film and the follow up to Bruce Almighty) NBC (parent company to Universal who is releasing the film) has a special “dotcomedy” page devoted to the release of the film. Every day they present a new Steve Carell clip from the NBC vault. If you are a fan (and I am) you may find it amusing. Even better (or “Evan” better ~ oh I crack me up...) from the Dotcomedy page or from the Evan Almighty page you can make a $5 donation to the “Almighty Forest” project (via Universal/NBC's Get on Board Now.org) and they will plant a tree, you can decorate a virtual tree and it gets your name added to the Evan Almighty DVD. How many DVDs do you think they will sell just so people can see their name?

Universal's "Get on Board.org" launched just last week - here's a snip from the press release:

UNIVERSAL CITY, CA – May 24, 2007 -- NBC Universal today launched “Get On Board,” a comprehensive, companywide program to improve the environmental impact of its operations by reducing greenhouse gases, raising awareness about green issues, and stimulating change in the media and entertainment industry. Led by Jeff Zucker, President and CEO, NBC Universal, the campaign is part of NBCU parent company General Electric’s “ecomagination” initiative. It is also a significant corporate extension of the “Get On Board” campaign launched last month by Universal Pictures and the Conservation Fund in conjunction with this summer’s debut of Evan Almighty, NBC Universal’s first movie to “zero out” its carbon emissions.

NBC has several "partners" involved in the effort including the famously green BP (British Petroleum), Burger King, GE (part of the NBCU family) and Dell. That's quite a green little coalition they got going there. I'll be watching to see how effective the green play is from Universal & NBC - and we'll see how many trees get planted. As for me, I'm going to name my tree Francesca. Evan Almighty will be released on June 22nd.