Underground Ads (Advertising, Design & Strategy for Non-Profits

when was the last time you read an article online? now when was the last time you read a FULL article online, without skimming?

reading this post should take you about 3 minutes. if you read this entire post you will have spent approx as much time reading as most people read in an entire day. that is, if you consider reading to be moving your eyes over every word on the screen, absorbing their meaning, finishing the post, and considering the entire piece as a complete thought.

i, it seems, have become most people.

a couple days ago, i posted an article about storytelling and the elections. about the storybook narratives constructed for obama and mccain, and the role of story in politics and our decision making. i found a link to the article on a newsfeed.  the title line sounded interesting, i clicked on it, read the first few paragraphs in full, then skimmed the rest of the piece for theme. the content seemed relevant to what we do here at underground, seemed like something that visitors to our site would find interesting, and so, i posted (see post below).

yesterday, it was brought to my attention that this post was not all-together, shall we say, undergroundish. the author was, shall we say, not a believer. and i felt, shall we say, stupid.

no big deal. this happens all the time. (misposting, buddy. not me feeling stupid.)

but i was shocked that it happened to me.

i shouldn’t be.

Read the rest of this entry »

a couple highlights on the internal conversations (conflicts?) i see a lot of designers, artists and communicators facing these days.

1.
a talk given by the well known designer Philippe Stark at TED in 2007 on the evolution, mutation and purpose(?) of design in the world today, and opening up possibilities for the future.

http://www.ted.com/index.php/talks/view/id/197

2.
“Dave, my mind is going,” HAL says, forlornly. “I can feel it. I can feel it.”

this article, just published in the Atlantic Weekly, discusses the way our interaction with the internet is altering not only what we think about, but HOW we think. buy it or not, matters not. social network internet hopping junkie or long-hand writing library stack lover, matters less. this has incredible implications for all of us, and esp. for those of us involved in communications. (and mcluhan smiles.)

http://www.theatlantic.com:80/doc/200807/google