August 21, 2009
australian moleskine
["Advertising Moleskine". 5"x7". Framed. Click on image to enlarge etc.]
[Unframed. Click on image to enlarge etc.]
Just shipped this off in the mail today- a commissioned, framed Moleskine drawing.
Dave Whittle, an advertising executive down in Australia, commissioned me to draw him a Moleskine, based on an old cartoon print-out of mine, that he had hanging on his office wall.
A Cube Grenade. Exactly.
I sold my first Moleskine to a collector in Paris. This one is going to somebody in the South Pacific. I love the way the Internet gives relatively small operations like my own a global reach. Thanks, Dave!.
[gapingvoid commissions...] [More Moleskines for sale on the gallery page here.]
August 18, 2009
i like difficult
[When I was in New York last year, I drew the above cartoon for my lovely friend, Kate. She kindly just sent me the photo. Thanks, Kate! P.S. Yes, if you knew Kate personally, then you'd know how well this cartoon applies to her. Rock on.]
August 16, 2009
hate you
[Backstory: About Hugh. Twitter. Newsletter. Book. Interview One. Interview Two. EVIL PLANS. Limited Edition Prints. Private Commissions. Cube Grenades.]
August 12, 2009
greyblue 0909
[Backstory: About Hugh. Twitter. Newsletter. Book. Interview One. Interview Two. EVIL PLANS. Limited Edition Prints. Private Commissions. Cube Grenades.]
August 5, 2009
stormhoek bottles
[A print idea for #evilplans. Click on image to enlarge etc.]
EUREKA! I had my EVIL PLANS road trip idea, but it was lacking the social object it needed to really work.
Sure, driving around Texas with a video camera and an idea about "Dream Big" was all very well, but it needed something to work as a totem for the Stormhoek wine.
IDEA: Hand-painted wine bottles.
I've drawn on Stormhoek wine bottles before, using painting sticks. They looked kinda cool. While I travel around Texas, I'll be making them to hand out to people who went to all the trouble to support this enterprise. See image above to get a rough idea what it might look like...
This is exciting. The road trip idea is suddenly A LOT More interesting, all of a sudden. Rock on.
[Update: Just added this blog post to EVIL PLANS.]
August 3, 2009
red & black 0907
[Backstory: About Hugh. Twitter. Newsletter. Book. Interview One. Interview Two. Limited Edition Prints. Private Commissions. Cube Grenades.]
July 27, 2009
the web 2.0 conference
From the "Social Marker" blog post:
When I visit San Francisco I am always surprised how often the name of my friend, Robert Scoble comes up in random conversation, unprompted by myself. Why is that? Why is he so well known? Is his blog REALLY that good? Is he REALLY that smart and interesting?[Thanks to @scobleizer and @arrington etc.]Well, I could give a whole stack of reasons to explain why I think Robert's success is well-deserved. But one major reason that his blog's traffic is so high, and his name so well-known, is that his personal brand has somehow managed to become a Social Marker inside the Silicon Valley ecosystem. The same could also be said for Mike Arrington, Loic Le Meur or Mark Zuckerberg. Dropping their names into random conversations allows people to quickly and efficiently contextualize themselves.
[Backstory: About Hugh. Twitter. Newsletter. Book. Interview One. Interview Two. Limited Edition Prints. Private Commissions. Cube Grenades."EVIL PLANS".]
July 22, 2009
i wanna create
[Backstory: About Hugh. Twitter. Newsletter. Book. Interview One. Interview Two. Limited Edition Prints. Private Commissions. Cube Grenades."EVIL PLANS".]
dumb cat
[Backstory: About Hugh. Twitter. Newsletter. Book. Interview One. Interview Two. Limited Edition Prints. Private Commissions. Cube Grenades."EVIL PLANS".]
July 7, 2009
under the surface
[Backstory: About Hugh. Twitter. Newsletter. Book. Interview One. Interview Two. Limited Edition Prints. Private Commissions. Cube Grenades."EVIL PLANS".]
art equals cocaine
[Backstory: About Hugh. Twitter. Newsletter. Book. Interview One. Interview Two. Limited Edition Prints. Private Commissions. Cube Grenades."EVIL PLANS".]
untitled 469
[Backstory: About Hugh. Twitter. Newsletter. Book. Interview One. Interview Two. Limited Edition Prints. Private Commissions. Cube Grenades."EVIL PLANS".]
July 6, 2009
untitled 468
[Backstory: About Hugh. Twitter. Newsletter. Book. Interview One. Interview Two. Limited Edition Prints. Private Commissions. Cube Grenades."EVIL PLANS".]
untitled 467
[Backstory: About Hugh. Twitter. Newsletter. Book. Interview One. Interview Two. Limited Edition Prints. Private Commissions. Cube Grenades."EVIL PLANS".]
trying to evolve
[Backstory: About Hugh. Twitter. Newsletter. Book. Interview One. Interview Two. Limited Edition Prints. Private Commissions. Cube Grenades."EVIL PLANS".]
douchebag nation
[Backstory: About Hugh. Twitter. Newsletter. Book. Interview One. Interview Two. Limited Edition Prints. Private Commissions. Cube Grenades."EVIL PLANS".]
hollywood
[Backstory: About Hugh. Twitter. Newsletter. Book. Interview One. Interview Two. Limited Edition Prints. Private Commissions. Cube Grenades."EVIL PLANS".]
June 29, 2009
recession
[Backstory: About Hugh. Twitter. Newsletter. Book. Interview One. Interview Two. Limited Edition Prints. Private Commissions. Cube Grenades."EVIL PLANS".]
the count of three
[Backstory: About Hugh. Twitter. Newsletter. Book. Interview One. Interview Two. Limited Edition Prints. Private Commissions. Cube Grenades."EVIL PLANS".]
google vs bing
[Cartoon inspired by this blog post.]
[Backstory: About Hugh. Twitter. Newsletter. Book. Interview One. Interview Two. Limited Edition Prints. Private Commissions. Cube Grenades.#evilplans.]
June 23, 2009
doubting thomas
["Confused". Click on image to enlarge etc.]
I drew this cartoon earlier this evening.
It's conveys the state I found myself in, back in New York a decade ago, when I was doing what I consider to be my best, or at least, my most formative work.
No artist wants their best work behind them. No human being wants their best days behind them. Yet my my Inner Doubting Thomas keeps telling me, I'll never be that young again; I'll never have my work be that fresh & new again. Nor, sadly, will the world, at least to me.
To Hell with it. I'll carry on, regardless.
And of course, so will you, at whatever insanely impractical path you chose for yourself. We knew what we were doing, when we signed up for this tour of duty.
We still have a few tricks up our sleeves, don't we?
Doubting Thomas can go fuck himself...
[etc: About Hugh. Interview. Newsletter. Book. Limited Edition Prints. Private Commissions. Cube Grenades. Hughtrain.]
June 18, 2009
the creative bug
[This quote was an excerpt from my last CDF Newsletter.]
[etc: About Hugh. Book. Limited Edition Prints. Private Commissions. Cube Grenades. Hughtrain.]
June 8, 2009
george had a plan!
[etc: About Hugh. Interview. Newsletter. Book. Limited Edition Prints. Private Commissions. Cube Grenades. Hughtrain.]
george
[etc: About Hugh. Interview. Newsletter. Book. Limited Edition Prints. Private Commissions. Cube Grenades. Hughtrain.]
June 7, 2009
surrounded
[Hat tip to Kilgore Trout, of course....]
[etc: About Hugh. Interview. Newsletter. Book. Limited Edition Prints. Private Commissions. Cube Grenades. Hughtrain.]
advertising moleskine
["Advertising Moleskine". 5"x7". Click on image to enlarge etc.]
Dave Whittle, an advertising executive down in Australia, commissioned me to draw him a Moleskine, based on an old cartoon print-out of mine, that he had hanging on his office wall.
A Cube Grenade. Exactly.
Yes, I'll have it framed, like this one.
It was a fun project. It turned out well. I am pleased. Thanks, Dave!.
June 3, 2009
"ignore everybody" cube grenades: the new small print series
["Dinosaur"]
["Hughtrain"]
["Quality"]
["Talked"]
A week ago I wrote that we'd be producing some new prints based on some of the cartoons appearing in my book, IGNORE EVERYBODY.
After receiving a lot of feedback from y'all, we decided on the four designs above. Here are some notes:
1. They'll be smaller. Approx 9.5"x14", roughly the same dimensions as my Mac laptop.Over the next week, I'll be working out all the details with this new size. Watch this space.2. They'll be more affordable. Circa $125.00 US, $400.00 for the complete set of four.
3. They'll be of the same high-quality. They'll be silk-screened by hand. Old School. They'll be signed and numbered by me. Because they are more affordable, they'll be larger editions, say, 800 or so. We could have saved money if we used digital printing, but we decided against it - hand pulled serigraphs, still.
4. Finding Space: We realized that about 35% of each edition done so far is being purchased by the same group of people. Many of them are saying, we want to collect, but we are running out of wall space. So these images are of a size that can be framed and hung on a small wall, several at a time. Or maybe people will do what I do i.e. keep the images in a small portfolio, for taking out when they have meetings, or entertaining. In any case, it seems to me that making lower cost, true high-quality, limited editions, lots more people will be able to enjoy them. No worries for those with big walls, I am going to continue to do the larger images as well.
[More: About Hugh. Interview. Newsletter. Book. Limited Edition Prints. Private Commissions. Cube Grenades. Hughtrain.]
June 2, 2009
god wants
[etc: About Hugh. Interview. Newsletter. Book. Limited Edition Prints. Private Commissions. Cube Grenades. Hughtrain.]
June 1, 2009
the human river
[etc: About Hugh. Newsletter. Book. Limited Edition Prints. Private Commissions. Cube Grenades. Hughtrain.]
node
[etc: About Hugh. Newsletter. Book. Limited Edition Prints. Private Commissions. Cube Grenades. Hughtrain.]
beer
[etc: About Hugh. Newsletter. Book. Limited Edition Prints. Private Commissions. Cube Grenades. Hughtrain.]
are we
[etc: About Hugh. Newsletter. Book. Limited Edition Prints. Private Commissions. Cube Grenades. Hughtrain.]
May 27, 2009
May 18, 2009
April 21, 2009
April 10, 2009
gapingvoid's secret, evil plan finally goes public...
["Hamster Wheel". Click on image to enlarge etc.]
I've sold or given away a lot of cartoons to my peer group over the years.
And given the choice between the two, I have generally preferred it when they hung it in their office, as opposed to in their homes.
Not that I have the slightest objection to people hanging it in their homes, of course. But ever since I was a kid, I've wanted my place of work to be a creative environment, not an environment of slow, lingering, death-by-endless-drudgery. And when I think of my peer group, they always FELT STRONGLY the same way as well, regardless of what they actually did for a living.
Idealistic? Sure. Unrealistic? Often. But we never had a problem with that. We knew it was the price we paid for trying to be true to our guts.
And yes, I always liked making cartoons that reflected this "creative" streak we all aspired to professionally. And my peer group liked it, too. And this is basically where my office-centric cartoon shtick came from.
One of the buzzwords you hear a lot in the business world these days, is "Innovation". Yes, it's a genuinely worthy thing to aspire to. Genuine innovation creates lots of genuine value, every young intern knows this. Which is why people like to throw it around like confetti. It's one of those words that sound good in meetings, regardless of how serious one is about ACTUALLY innovating ANYTHING.
Here's some friendly advice for all you Innovation-buzzword fanboys: You don't get to be more innovative, until you make yourself more creative FIRST.
"Innovative" is an "external" word. It can be measured. It generally talks about things that have been tested properly and found to have worked in the real world.
"Creative", however, is more of an "internal" word. It's subjective, it's murkier. It's far harder to measure, it's far harder to define. It's an inward journey, not outward. Which is why a lot of people in business try to keep the word out of their official lexicon, preferring instead more neutral, more externally-focused language like "Value", "Excellence", "Quality" and yes, "Innovation".
The trouble is, of course, that approach doesn't work as well any more. In this globalized, hyper-linked, internet-enabled world, "Boring" has suddenly become a very expensive luxury.
Do you REALLY think Apple is afraid to use the word, "Creative"? Do you REALLY think Steve Jobs goes around his office yakking on endlessly about "Value, Excellence, Quality and Innovation"? No, of course he doesn't. Apple's UTTERLY AMAZING design, business and marketing prowess comes from the UTTERLY AMAZING creative fire in their collective belly, not the other way around.
I want to make limited-edition prints that somehow, even in a small, indirect way, helps make companies and individuals less afraid, and more willing to be CREATIVE, more willing to embrace the CREATIVITY that they already have. Because economically and spiritually, that is ultimately where our future lies, even if that idea sometimes terrifies us.
There. So now you know my secret, evil plan. You have been warned.
April 9, 2009
the white pebble
[Click on image to enlarge etc.]
There's a wonderful metaphor in the Bible [Revelation 2:17] about "a white pebble".
17 Let the one who has an ear hear what the spirit says to the congregations: To him that conquers I will give some of the hidden manna, and I will give him a white pebble, and upon the pebble a new name written which no one knows except the one receiving it.The metaphor was once explained to me by a Catholic monk. To paraphrase:
"You have three selves: The person that you think you are, the person that other people think you are, and the person that God thinks you are. The white pebble represents the latter. And of the three, it is by far the most important."
He then gave me some good advice, something I've always kept with me:
"When life gets really tough, just remember the white pebble. Just remember who you really are. Just remember the person that only God can see."
Whatever your thoughts on God or Religion may be, positive or negative, the white pebble is a very simple metaphor that audaciously asks the question: "Who are you, really?"
Yes, why are you here, exactly? Who are you here for? Yourself? Other people? God? Or maybe some other cause? You tell me...
It's one of those questions that never gets old. Unlike the poor body that houses us.
April 8, 2009
April 7, 2009
the "ignore everybody" cartoon
[Click on image to enlarge etc.]
Last week, Patrick Brennan was stuck in an airport lounge for several hours, waiting for his connecting flight. To kill time, he started messing around visually on his computer with the forty chapter titles of my upcoming book, "Ignore Everybody". He came up with this, then emailed it to me.
I liked it so much, I went ahead and re-worked it, in my own handwriting. Very cool. If I ever publish it as a limited-edition print, Patrick, I'll make damn sure you get a copy. Thanks so much!
mediocrity sucks
I'm guessing this would make a pretty fun print to put on someone's office wall... just a thought.
mediocrity now howls in protest
[Click on image to enlarge etc.]
[Cartoon inspired by a recent Twitter post.]
create or die
[Click on image to enlarge etc.]
You either get it or you don't. You either feel it in your bones, or you don't. There's nothing to explain.
[UPDATE:] Though only a few hours old, this cartoon is already in the running to become the next gapingvoid limited-edition print! Details here.]
April 6, 2009
April 4, 2009
April 1, 2009
the purple cow cartoon
[Click on Image to Enlarge etc]
This drawing was inspired, of course, by my friend, Seth Godin's seminal book, "Purple Cow"..
I always loved both the words and the design of the book. This is my tribute to it.
The book came out in 2003. Since then it's changed a lot of lives for the better, including mine. Since then its DNA has buried itself deep inside Marketing Theory everywhere. Long may it continue to do so...
February 22, 2009
February 17, 2009
February 13, 2009
February 12, 2009
February 10, 2009
wikipedia moleskine
["Wikipedia Moleskine". Click on image to enlarge etc.]
Somebody recently commissioned me to draw them one of my Moleskines. The idea is to frame and mount it, like "Moleskine 42".
The guy has issues with Wikipedia. Long story.
February 8, 2009
February 2, 2009
January 10, 2009
January 4, 2009
west texas mountains
I drew this one from memory, sitting in a coffee shop... it captures the vibe of living out here pretty well...
1997
This is a cartoon about the year, 1997. I drew it yesterday, sitting over at Harry's Tinaja. More specifically, it's about December, 1997, when I started drawing cartoons on the back of business cards- mostly in bars and coffee shops. You can read more of the backstory here.
What a crazy path it has been so far. Rock on.
December 23, 2008
print update: "bluetrain"
[Update: Video of me signing the first artist's proof.]
["Bluetrain"- the new gapingvoid print. Click on image to enlarge etc.]
[UPDATE: 30th December. "Bluetrain" is now sold out. Thanks, Everybody!]
On December 4th, I announced I was going into the fine art print business, pretty much full-time, if all goes well.
Like I said earlier, the first edition will be coming out in mid-January.
I also said that the first twenty people who sent me an e-mail could buy the print at $175- once the print is made, the price will be around the $250-$300 mark.
To be honest, at the time I thought twenty wasn't a very conservative number- I was thinking if ten or twelve took me up on the offer by Christmas, that would be pretty amazing.
As soon as I posted the offer up on the blog, I went out for dinner. By the time I came back two hours later, 24 people had already taken me up on it. Within 24 hours, the number was closer to 40.
Not bad for a limited edition of only 85, don't you think? We're talking about people buying something "Sight Unseen"- something that RARELY happens in the art business.
As for the kind people who e-mailed early, but not early enough to make it on the "First Twenty" list, I thought it would be unfair on the "First Twenty" to give them the same discount. But at the same time, it would be a shame not to do something to reward them for being early adaptors. Hmmmm... You can see my dilemma. So in the end, I told them they could have one for $200- it's still a pretty good discount. They seemed happy enough with that, so all well and good.
The second thing I did was to let the First Twenty vote on which image they wanted to see printed up. I gave them a choice of three designs, the image above, "Bluetrain", won the majority vote, so that's the one we're going with.
About the piece in question: It's called "Bluetrain", because yes, it's largely colored blue, and also because it's a re-working of the head cartoon in my business manifesto, The Hughtrain, which of course, was in turn named after one of my favorite books, The Cluetrain. "Blue Trane" is also the name of one of my favorite jazz albums. So it all fits together, somehow.
It'll be a fairly standard poster size, approx 18x24". They'll all be personally signed and numbered in pencil, by myself. We're also using a specialist fine art printmaker in New York City for the job, not a general commercial printer.
I decided to use color simply because I didn't want to just blow up the original, black & white, bizcard-sized cartoon to poster-sized. I wanted to make it look totally new and different, yet totally the same and familiar. As for the "Pop" sensibilty, well, I am a cartoonist, so go figure...
Since that first big splash of interest from the First Twenty, we've had a steady stream of people signing up. There's only about 20 left unsold in this edition, so if you're still interested in having one of them, please send me an email as soon as you can [Thanks!]: gapingvoid@gmail.com
I hope y'all are as excited by this new venture of mine as I am. As always, thanks for your support, none of this would be possible without you. Merry Christmas and Happy Holidays!
[UPDATE:] ONLY THREE PRINTS LEFT! Price IS $250 for the last ten.
December 22, 2008
December 19, 2008
amsterdam 001
Messing around with my Tablet PC again; a wee purple number based on a sketch I did a few weeks ago in Amsterdam. Rock on.
litho update: sneak peak
[Click on image to enlarge etc....]
This is a close-up section of one of the new litho's I've designed. This section covers maybe 20-25% of the entire area of the piece. Just giving y'all a teaser etc.
Been spending a lot of time learning about printing, and the printing business over the last couple of weeks...
December 18, 2008
edelman cartoon
[Click on image to enlarge etc.]
A few weeks ago my buddy over at Edelman Europe, David Brain commissioned me to draw a PR-related cartoon for an ad they were running. Though like all commercial illustration gigs, there were a few changes made in the end, I liked my first offering so much I decided to just go ahead and blog it here.
There are some new ideas in there, and some old ones I borrowed from my attic, most notably our friend, the ever-cheerful and optimistic Social Media Specialist. A lot of the ideas were inspired by the interview I did with David back in early November.
Considering how tight the deadline was at the time, the project turned out rather well. I was happy, so was David. Hopefully Richard Edelman was, too. Rock on.
December 16, 2008
December 14, 2008
December 10, 2008
give me
Drawn live at Le Web Paris.
It's been an intense but fun couple of days. Looking forward to flying back to Texas tomorrow.
December 4, 2008
November 25, 2008
November 24, 2008
hope
[Cartoon inspired by Shel Israel's recent post]
[UPDATE:] Brian Rethinks Dell
Brian Baily, who follows me on Twitter, emailed me the following re. my work with Dell. Got my attention, to say the least:
The thing I keep trying to figure out is why did a few 140-character comments by a guy I had never met have more impact on my view of Dell than anything else over the last 2 years. I used to love Dell and worked with them all the time in my former life. Over the last few years, I began to see them as a big, soulless company obsessed with only the product and its price (and especially the price of all the pieces that make the product). All of their advertising seems to be about the stuff and the specs and not about me, or my company, or the amazing things I can do with their it. Even if they want to emphasize their price advantage, which is important, tell me that how I can afford a better health plan for my employees because I'm not wasting money on overpriced hardware.I've been saying this for years: Blogging [and all its social media cousins] is a good way to make things happen indirectly. Sure, it takes forever and it's a bitch to measure, but when it works... Boy, it REALLY works.Your few tweets and posts about Dell have already made me think about Dell differently. I've heard a little about the determined, loyal people inside who want Dell to build the best products for the best price. I have a sense of the soul inside the machine, and their passion to do what they do better than anyone else, but also to do well by their customers. Dell seems like a company worth paying attention to again. Hell, I even looked up the Dell Mini - the first time I've been on a Dell product page in a long time (unfortunately their web stuff and product naming still sucks and is ridiculously complicated... "Dell Inspiron Mini 9"). As a Texan, I want Dell to thrive. I hope you can play a part in making that happen.
you're a social media specialist?
[After reading Pat Phelan's "Are Social Media experts surplus to requirements in a recession?", I couldn't resist...]
November 23, 2008
social media specialists
[Click on images to enlarge etc.]
[Bonus: A little badge for your sidebar. Click on image to enlarge etc.]
November 5, 2008
November 1, 2008
creating blue monsters: "social objects" that articulate the purpose-idea
(Cartoon taken from The Hughtrain etc.)
Like I said in my interview with Mark Earls, The Blue Monster is a "Purpose-Idea". As Mark, the man who first coined the term explains it:
Put really simply, the Purpose-Idea is the "What For?" of a business, or any kind of community. What exists to change (or protect) in the world, why employees get out of bed in the morning, what difference the business seeks to make on behalf of customers and employees and everyone else? BTW this is not "mission, vision, values" territory - it's about real drives, passions and beliefs. The stuff that men in suits tend to get embarrassed about because it's personal. But it's the stuff that makes the difference between success and failure, because this kind of stuff brings folk together in all aspects of human life.Real drives, passions and beliefs. Exactly.
The Blue Monster line, "Change The World Or Go Home" is not rocket science or literary brilliance. It just articulates a simple belief, a simple passion, a simple drive THAT ALREADY EXISTED, long before The Blue Monster ever came on to the scene. That's all it was ever meant to do.
[The Microsoft Blue Monster etc.]
Whether you agree or disagree with it doesn't matter, the important bit is that people within Microsoft believe it. Unlike a conventional ad campaign, it's not about you. It's about them.
Why is something like this potentially valuable to a business? Simply put, if you believe something passionately enough, for long enough, articulate it well enough, and your actions are aligned, credible and consistent with your belief for long enough, it's just a matter of time before other people start believing it, too. And next thing you know, you have an interesting conversation going on, both inside and outside the company. And as Doc Searls famously said, "Markets are conversations". Ker-Chiing.
Again, none of this is rocket science. Talking to people never is.
When people ask me what exactly is a Blue Monster, I tell them, it's not necessarily a cartoon. It's simply a social object that allows one to more easily articulate the Purpose-Idea. No more, no less.
I've been asking myself for years, what comes after conventional, Madison-Avenue-style advertising, now that we live in a post-TV, post-advertising, post-message world? "Creating Blue Monsters" is the closest I've ever come to finding an actual answer.
Besides drawing the cartoons, helping other companies create Blue Monsters is how I intend to spend the remainder of my career.
Cartoons and Blue Monsters. I really do have the world's greatest job. Rock on.
October 24, 2008
"blogs aren't dead": hello from amsterdam
[This card, which was drawn at the table during dinner, was photographed by the lovely Anne. She wrote about last night's soiree here.]
I'm in Amsterdam. Not much to report, other to say I'm having a lovely time at Blog08.
[This is the card that I gave to Anne.]
This is my first time being back in Europe, since I left for West Texas in February. Nice being back on this side of the pond, in a trippy kind of way etc.
October 13, 2008
cardboard 444
[Click on image to enlarge etc.]
"Cardboard 444". Drew this earlier this morning. A little line drawing on cardboard. 2x3.5 inches i.e. business-card sized.
Since I got back from Austin on Friday I've been mostly working on DesertManahttan, and then goofing off the rest of the time.
Well, maybe "goofing off" is too strong a term. Just been doing a lot of thinking recently. A lot of new stuff is coming down the pike, and I'm just trying to re-calibrate my brain to handle it all.
August 27, 2008
live on the edges or not at all
["Edges 1". Part of "The Edges" series. Click on image to enlarge...]
Over the weekend while I was working on the above drawing, from out of nowhere the phrase, "Live on the edges or not at all" suddenly popped into my head. So I used that line for the drawing's title etc.
Since then the line has stayed with me. I've been giving it a lot of thought. What exactly do I mean by it? Here are some notes, in no particular order.
1. There are lots of edges. The phrase, "Living on The Edge" often connotes something negative. Think of Jimi Hendrix, dying young from drug and alcohol abuse. Or William Blake, whose visionary art and poetry was never properly understood in his lifetime. Or William S. Burroughs, and his crazy years of lonely exile. All living on the edges of Society. All paying a heavy price for the privilege. You get the idea.
But there are other edges out there. Plenty of them. Apple obsessing about industrial design. Dell obsessing about their customers. Microsoft obsessing about software problems that may not even exist yet. Though their business models are all quite different, they're quite edgy about what they do as individual companies. And this is PRECISELY what made them so successful- the edge part, not the middle part.
2. And we're not just talking about computers. While most people are happy to sell business suits for a couple of hundred dollars, here's Thomas selling them for $5000. He's selling at the very extreme, high-end "edge" of the suit market. Or Max Brenner and his incredibly expensive chocolate. Price-wise, he's also "on the edge", and people can't get enough.
3. "Edgelings". This term was coined by a friend of mine, Stowe Boyd to describe people who gravitate towards the edges. So far I've heard nothing better.
4. The Herd. When sheep flock together, in order to protect the collective, the strong end up in the middle of the flock; the old, infirm and weak end up on the outside of the flock, leaving them easy pickin's for any predators who may be nearby. If you read Mark Earl's fabulous book, "Herd", you soon realize that human beings aren't that different. For all the heroic individualism Western society likes to idealize [almost to the point of fetishism], humans are surprisingly "Herd-like" in their behavior.
Just as sheep move to the center of the flock for purely survival reasons, so do human beings. It's why we wear khakis and join tennis clubs. But some of us move to "the edges" for the exact same reason- Survival. "If we stay in the middle, we're just going to get creamed like everybody else, once the market moves on." I don't think "Edgelings" consciously choose to be this way- like every other mammal out there, they just want to get on with their business without being eaten by wolves. Declarations like "Live on the edges or not at all" come after the fact- as Mark Earls would say, it's more about justifying past behavior, rather than ensuring future behavior.
5. What's true in life, is also true in marketing. The great advertising and marketing thinker, Russell Davies says that a brand's Number One job is to be "Interesting". I agree. And I also seriously, seriously believe that if you're on the hunt for "Interesting", you're going to find it far more easily on the edges, not in the middle.
As my friend and mentor, Seth Godin told me over dinner a couple of years ago, while I was picking his brains for marketing advice, "The edges. Always keep pushing on the edges".
Exactly.
August 25, 2008
August 8, 2008
August 5, 2008
keep dell weird
[Click on image to enlarge/download/print etc. Licensing terms here.]
I just drew this little cartoon for my friends over at Dell. Feel free to print it out, use it to make t-shirts or whatever for your own personal use etc etc.
Anybody who knows Austin well will get the "Weird" reference, i.e. the now-famous "Keep Austin Weird" slogan...
But that's what inspired the cartoon.
I know Dell is a global company. I know they've got big plans for China and India. That being said, I don't think one can overstate JUST HOW MUCH of Austin's culture is hard-wired into Dell's company DNA.
A big part of why so many people work for Dell is quite simply, it allows them to live in Austin.
And although Austin has doubled in size in the last decade or so, at its core it remains what it's always been- a pleasant, genial, small college & government town.
Austin is a fabulous place. People live there because they love it. The locals are very passionate about the city they call home.
After finishing college at UT Austin, Michael Dell could have set up his company anywhere he wanted. He could have easily have moved it back to Houston, where he grew up. Or maybe the West Coast. East Coast. Whatever. He chose not to.
Does Austin have a unique vibe, a sensibility, a set of values that can be exported globally? The way, say, Apple exports Californian culture globally, or Starbucks exports Seattle culture globally? I think it does. I think it can. And I think Dell's the right company for the job.
[NOTE TO PEOPLE WHO WORK AT DELL:] Remember where you're from. Austin, Texas. Love it. Cherish it. Never forget it. Rock on.
[PS: Yeah, I know Dell is technically in Round Rock- an Austin suburb- and not within Austin city limits, but that was for tax reasons, and little else.]
silicon valley map
[Click on image to enlarge etc.]
The lovely Rebecca MacKinnon suggested that I draw a Silicon-Valley-centric map of the world, a-la the old New Yorker cartoons by Saul Steinberg.
Here you go, Rebecca. Thanks for the idea!
[UPDATE:] Les was not pleased. Les left a comment below:
There are more than rednecks in the Midwest, just as there are more than gays in the bay area. I live in small town midwest. I live on a lake, I can see lots of beautiful trees out my windows. I have a six mile, 15 min commute to a job in a high tech medical device company. My job takes me many places all over the world. Perhaps if you actually knew about the midwest you wouldn't be quite so dismissive.
August 1, 2008
July 30, 2008
July 29, 2008
July 18, 2008
the techcrunch lithograph 2008
[The Techcrunch 2008 lithograph. Click on image to enlarge etc.]
The annual Techcrunch party is in Menlo Park next week, and as usual I'm supplying a signed, limited edition lithograph, sponsored by the groovy cats at Stormhoek.
For the last two years, I printed them up and signed them in London, then shipped them over to Silicon Valley in time for the party.
This year they're being printed in San Francisco, and I'll be at the party, signing them live and handing them out. It'll give me something fun to do there besides the usual "schmoozing & boozing".
If you're at the party, look out for me. I should be sitting at a table somewhere, signing away. Rock on.
July 14, 2008
July 10, 2008
birth and death
["Birth And Death". 2008. Pencil on paper. Approx 22x30 inches. Click on image to enlarge etc.]
I just whipped out this drawing earlier this evening. It took me about as long as it takes me to draw one of my typical "back of business cards" format. Just this time I'm using [A] a much larger piece of paper and [B] a very large carpenter's pencil. Living out in the desert has made want to loosen up a bit. We'll see where this goes etc.
It's artistic merit [or lack thereof] notwithstanding, I really like the sentiment, "Birth and Death will save the world". Rock on.
July 1, 2008
June 30, 2008
June 19, 2008
new mistake
When I briefly met Esther Dyson the other day, I gave her the above cartoon, which I had drawn there, right on the spot. It was, of course, inspired by her classic maxim, "Always make new mistakes".
What a total honor to meet her. People like Esther always remind me of what Loic and I talked about once: That the best thing about being a blogger is the people you get to meet. Exactly.
June 15, 2008
hello from san francisco
[Close-up on Fed 45. Approx 1.5x1.5 inches square. Click on image to enlarge etc.]
[UPDATE: You can follow my goings on at Supernova over on my Twitter page. Also, they have their own Twitter page here.]
Blogging this from a neat cafe here in San Francisco. Heading over to Supernova in a little while, where I'll be speaking on a panel Wednesday morning.
It's great being back in town; it's amazing how many friends I have in San Francisco, even if I've spent less than a total two weeks in my entire life here.
But I feel the same way here as I did in New York last week- the Big City doesn't do much for me any more. It did once, then one day the feeling vanished. I can't wait to get back to Alpine and crank out some more big drawings.
That being said, this regular traveling stuff is important for me. I think I'd go nuts if all I did was hang out in West Texas. Variety is the spice of life etc.
Besides the cartooning, I've got a couple of interesting project stewing in the background. Waiting for a few more planets to line up before going public with them. It's all good. I'll let you know how I get on. Cheers.
June 14, 2008
the puck
"The Puck". Pencil on paper, approx. 16 x 21 inches.
"Aim for where the puck is headed, not for where it is", is a line that my friend, Fred Wilson once quoted to me. It's his personal mantra for the Venture Capital business. Not hard to see why; it's a superb thought.
[UPDATE:] Some commenters below kindly tell me that this is a paraphrase of something originally said by the hockey great, Wayne Gretzky. Rock on.
June 13, 2008
"fred 45" update
[Click on image to enlarge etc.]
Well, "Fred 45" is coming along, slowly. Approx 15 x 21 inches, ink & pencil on paper. Last time I blogged it, it was just a pencil grid.
All this traveling I've been doing recently has KILLED my productivity, at least in this department... I'm looking forward to a long, quiet winter, to say the least.
now what?
This is a cartoon I designed for Jerry Colonna's business card, about 2 years ago. He's still using it. Rock on.
June 8, 2008
June 1, 2008
"fred 45" begun...
[Click on image to enlarge etc.]
Started on "Fred 45" this afternoon. So far it's just a pencil grid on paper, approx 15 x 21 inches.
I have a pretty neat idea where this is headed. Watch this space.
"fred 44" is finished!
[Fred 44. 18 x 24 inches. Ink & pencil on paper. Click on image to enlarge etc.]
Got in early this morning and put the final touches onto Fred 44.
OK. So now it's done. Over. Basta. Finito.
I feel good about it. Rock on.
May 31, 2008
"fred 44" update 2
[Click on image to enlarge etc.]
I'm generally happy with how "Fred 44" is coming along. It feels like it's about 75% done, though one never knows. Like an artist friend once told me, "A painting is never finished; it is ended."
Right now I seem to be drawing a lot. Kinda feeling guilty because there's a lot of other stuff going on, all to do with Social Objects and The Blue Monster.
People ask me a lot if I ever get bored/lonely/crazy out here in West Texas. To me it's a funny question- I simply don't have time to feel any of that. There's far too much going on...
May 29, 2008
May 28, 2008
May 27, 2008
"fred 44" update
[Click on image to enlarge etc.]
Spent much of the day working on "Fred 44", an 18x24 inch, ink & pencil on paper.
Right now it's mostly pencil, but there's a bit of pen action going on. The latter will increase in the later stages of the drawing.
I have a new Secret Evil Plan as to what to with this drawing, once it's done. Watch this space. Rock on.
May 22, 2008
May 21, 2008
stormhoek tweetups
[Click on image to enlarge/download etc. Feel free to use badge for your own needs etc.]
Two years ago, Stormhoek sponsored geek dinners. They were a huge success.
We're ready to get back at it.
This time, however, we're going to sponsor Tweetups. If you're one of the people following me on Twitter, are based in the USA and are planning on having a Tweetup in the next wee while, drop me an e-mail, and let's see if we can't get some wine sent there for the evening. Rock on.
[For those of you outside the loop, a "Tweetup" is a spontaneous, self-organizing social gathering of fellow Twitter users, usually organized on Twitter itself. Usually food and drink are part of the equation etc.]
be passionate
[Click on image to enlarge/download/print etc.]
This is a lithograph idea I'm playing around with for Stormhoek. The "Be Passionate" line comes from the Stormhoek back label. Rock on.
stormhoek back label
[Click on image to enlarge/download/print etc.]
Yep. I'm back working with Stormhoek again. It's got new owners, but so far, so good. The good news is, they don't want me doing anything too differently from what I was doing already.
Now that I'm based in the US, I'm hoping to do a lot more geek dinner stuff. And of course, the lithographs. Rock on.
The above cartoon a "Hugh" version of the Stormhoek back label. "The one with the back label on the front". You can read the backstory here.
May 20, 2008
May 19, 2008
red & grey 42
[I'm thinking something like this would make a really good signed, limited-edition lithograph for the mainstream art market...]
"fred 44": work in progress
[Click on image to enlarge etc.]
Started a new drawing this morning, "Fred 44". 18x24 inches. Right now it's just pencil on paper, but I plan adding pen & ink to the mix later on. Watch this space etc.
the trick to new york, revisited
This is a re-working of a very old cartoon of mine, drawn back in my New York days, which also borrows heavily from another New York-era cartoon. Unlike its predecessors, it's now available in high-resolution, so if you want, you can download it and print it out, or whatever. Rock on.
May 18, 2008
beer will break your heart
[A little piece of graffiti, done on a picnic table of my local bar etc.]
May 17, 2008
the numbness
[UPDATE:] Thanks to Microsoft's Steve Clayton for putting this little gapingvoid cartoon slideshow together. It was done using Popfly, and can be embedded on any webpage. Rock on.
blue monster 2.0
[Click on image to enlarge/download/print etc.]
For those of you who don't work at Microsoft, I played around with this new "Blue Monster 2.0" logo. Feel free to print it out or whatever. Rock on.
[P.S. Click on image to get the white background version etc.]
May 10, 2008
"fred 43": work in progress- day one
[Click on image to enlarge etc.]
Like they say, when you fall off your horse, the first thing to do is get right back on it.
After Fred 42 died earlier today, I got right back to work. Behold "Fred 43". Ink & pencil on paper. 23 x 30 inches. It's been a busy morning, to say the least.
I'm already liking this one. We'll see where it goes...
By the way, to answer a frequently-asked question. I consider these large pieces "cartoons", I do not consider them "fine art". I consider myself a cartoonist, not an "artist".
So there!
r.i.p "fred 42"
I'm sad to report the premature death of my good friend, "Fred 42".
This happened earlier today, when my pen exploded.
It happens.
All is not lost. I already have a New Evil Plan. Hurrah! I'll let you see it when it's ready.
I spent about twenty minutes being really bummed, then said, "To Hell with it. "Fred 43" will be EVEN BETTER."
It's all good...
May 9, 2008
cut the art crap
[Click on image to enlarge etc.]
Cranked out this one quickly today. "Cut The Art Crap", May, 2008. 24x24 inches, pencil on wooden Ampersand Gessobord, varnished with spray acrylic. I might sell this one... thinking it would go well in somebody's New York apartment. We'll see what happens etc.
"fred 42": work in progress- day six
[Close-up of "Fred 42". Click on image to enlarge etc.]
Yesterday [Day Five] I hardly touched Fred 42. Maybe ten minutes, tops. My brain was all wrapped up with all the Blue Monster stuff.
Like I told somebody the other day, if I just tried to be a full-time cartoonist, I would fail. If I just tried to be a full-time marketer, I would fail.
Somehow it's managing to balance BOTH spheres that keeps it interesting for me... and ipso facto, interesting for the people that pay my bills. And all this, of course, feeds back into The Sex & Cash Theory, from Chapter Seven of "How To Be Creative":
"The creative person basically has two kinds of jobs: One is the sexy, creative kind. Second is the kind that pays the bills. Sometimes the task in hand covers both bases, but not often. This tense duality will always play center stage. It will never be transcended."Today I don't want to think about marketing. I'm just going to draw...
May 7, 2008
"fred 42": work in progress- day four
["Fred 42". Click on image to enlarge etc.]
[Close-up shot.]
Yesterday I wrote, "When I do large pieces, I rarely do the long, 18-hour obsessive stints that so many artists are known for. I prefer to whittle away at it in brief spurts over time- a little bit there, a little bit there, that kind of thing."
Hmmm... That does not explain the 8-10 hours I put into the drawing yesterday. What the hell, I guess I was on a roll.
In the last decade or so, I always had a job to hold down, or a business to run. I always had a thousand different things to do BESIDES making drawings. My drawing time was always "stolen" from the other stuff going on.
But now here in uber-laid-back West Texas, suddenly I have more time on my hands.
Or so it felt, yesterday.
"fred 42": work in progress- day three
[Click on image to enlarge etc.]
Yesterday (Day 2) I hardly touched the drawing. I was busy doing other things.
Today I fooled around with it for a couple of hours in the morning. Quite pleased with the results, so far.
When I do large pieces, I rarely do the long, 18-hour obsessive stints that so many artists are known for. I prefer to whittle away at it in brief spurts over time- a little bit there, a little bit there, that kind of thing.
I'm guessing "Fred 42" will be done by month's end, if all goes well. Rock on.
May 5, 2008
"fred 42": work in progress- day one
[Click on image to enlarge etc.]
[Close-up: Click on image to enlarge etc.]
Today, once I had finished with work for the day, I decided to start on a a new drawing. 18 x 24 inches. Pencil and pen & ink on paper. Working Title: "Fred 42" [I'll explain the title at a later date].
So far I'm having a blast. We'll see where this all takes me. I have no idea how long it'll take me to complete, but I'll let you know when it happens. Rock on.
ian murdock: sun keynote
[UPDATE: You can watch the video here- See Chapter One.]
[UPDATE: You can see photos from the event here.]
[Click on images to enlarge etc.]
Last week I was in Austin. One of the reasons I was there was to help design some slides for Ian Murdock's keynote, "Innovate. Collaborate. Integrate", which he gave today.
Above are the slides. They start off as a giant, black, haystack-shaped software monolith, then evolved outwards into "Open Source", and finally, to the Sun logo. The sixth cartoon is just a humorous drawing projected behind the other panel members who were sharing the stage with Ian.
I'm told the screen was fifty feet wide, so I'm guesing they would've looked rather spiffy. These were all drawn in pencil on 3.5-inch card [Business-card size, obviously]. The actual drawings didn't take that long to execute; though getting them to work cohesively and conceptually took a long time, a lot of collaboration was involved.
It was a cool gig; I hope to do more like it. Thanks to the very groovy Sarah Dornsife for making it happen. Rock on.
May 4, 2008
moleskine 42
[Overview: Click on image to enlarge etc.]
[Close-up view]
"Moleskine 42". A wee sketch I did over the weekend in my Moleskine notebook. Approx 5x7 inches.
April 26, 2008
gapingvoid: a new direction?
[Tablet PC sketch of what I have in mind. Click on image to enlarge etc.]
One of the things I like about Twitter is that it allows you to have instant feedback from lots of people while you're thinking out-loud.
Case in point: If you have been following my Twitter feed recently you'll have noticed me bandying this idea around, about doing large pieces. Namely, large, abstract paintings on canvas.
Basically, the idea is to create six-by-six foot canvas, covered with a field of my obsessive "squiggly" style. The image above, which I made digitally on a Tablet PC, should give you a pretty good idea what I mean.
So far the feedback has been tremendous. I've got dozens of comments, both public and private. Thanks for that.
I think being out here in Alpine, Texas, covered under a blanket of desert air and "Big Sky" brought about a wee change in me, at least in what I find interesting artistically. The "cartoons on the back of business cards" format came about in New York City, when living conditions, shall we say, were far more intense, crowded and cramped. Not to mention, I was ten years younger. Things change.
Acquiring blank business cards and a few pens is a LOT simpler and easier than making big paintings. With the latter, suddenly you have to start thinking about renting studio space and buying materials, which are not cheap. Then you have to find a buyer for the pieces, to offset the cost of making them. Then you have you have to figure out how to ship them to their new owners without them getting damaged. Plus a myriad of other pain-in-the-ass factors to consider.
Whatever. It's all exciting stuff. I'm looking forward to finding studio space in the very near future. Though to be honest, I have no intention of ever becoming a permanent, full-time artist. Too much else going on. Too much else out there worth getting interested in. I like to juggle things around. Keeps things new and interesting. We shall see what happens.
April 24, 2008
April 18, 2008
gillmor gang joins the techcrunch network
So it looks like my friend, Steve Gillmor is working with Mike Arrington now. Jason Calacanis breaks the story, with the above cartoon on the blog post. The Gillmor Gang's new permanent home is here.]
Jason writes:
Here's some exclusive news: after being offline for over a year in a legal dispute (can't get into details) the Gillmor Gang is back and is part of TechCrunch! Steve Gillmor is one of the most insightful minds in the technology space, and his "gang" is a free-form thought-fest that unpacks, repacks, and distracts memes faster than any other conversation out there.
April 17, 2008
April 16, 2008
April 5, 2008
April 3, 2008
March 13, 2008
March 12, 2008
January 29, 2008
January 12, 2008
January 11, 2008
January 7, 2008
December 23, 2007
December 13, 2007
naked conversations
[Cartoon dedicated to my friend, the dauntless Robert Scoble.]
[Seesmic Post:] "Are 'Mosquitoes' a good Metaphor for Web 2.0?"
December 1, 2007
crazy cathedral
[Drew this cartoon outside Sagrada Familia when I was in Barcelona the other week. Later it occurred to me that Sagrada F. is not technically a cathedral, but a church. Life is suffering etc.]
November 28, 2007
why facebook might be consigning themselves to the slushpile of history.
["Social Media". Drew it about 20 minutes ago. Inspired the post below etc.]
So what's stopping Facebook from putting in a small, tickable box that says, "Please do not let my 'Friends' send me any more of these REALLY ANNOYING Vampire/Zombie/Super wall/Super Poke/Whatever invites. I really, really don't want them etc..."?
Heck, it would probably take one of their junior coders only a few minutes to do. What's the problem?
I'm starting to suspect the short answer is, they WANT you to spend hour after hour after hour every month on their pages, deleting the crap. Makes the numbers look better for their bean counters:
"Yes, Mr Investor, people are spending on average 4 hours a day on our site. Can we have your vast pots of money now?"
But when in fact, 3 hours and forty five minutes of said 4 hours is spent deleting Zombie invites and their ilk, you start getting the feeling that somebody in Silicon Valley is taking somebody else for for a little ride.
I'm not saying this is what Facebook is doing. I'm saying this is what it's starting to feel like to me, more and more.
Don't get me wrong, I generally like Facebook and have found it mostly useful. I've even met their CEO, Mark Zuckerberg once before and liked the guy.
That being said, if they want to fix the problem, they can easily do so. If they do not, they're sadly just consigning themselves to the slushpile of history.
["HUGH'S THIRD LAW": If you p*ss in the soup for long enough, eventually it stops tasing like soup."]
[UPDATE:] Oh, Happy Day. Looks like Facebook now lets you ban annoying apps on the latter's Facebook homepages. Look for the link at the bottom right hand corner. Rock on.
November 26, 2007
hugh's second law [zuckerberg was on a roll]
HUGH'S SECOND LAW: "The minute the Facebooks of the world forget they are replaceable, is the minute people like me move in for The Kill."
[HUGH"S FIRST LAW: "All online social networks eventually turn into a swampy mush of spam."]
[UPDATE: I left the following message in the comments: "Ben Grada, I'm not anti-Facebook. In fact, I quite like it... But the ever increasing amount of non-relevant stuff it's letting through the net is beginning to concern me. I actually met Mark Zuckerberg earlier this year in Silicon Valley. Good guy. Wicked smart and gracious manners. I hope he works it out."]
November 25, 2007
November 14, 2007
do you know everybody
[A wee drawing I did for Deborah Schultz when I was recently in San Francisco. She scanned it and e-mailed me the image.]
I'm off to catch a plane to Barcelona. See you on the other side...
[Bonus Link:] Debs has a really cool diagram of The Social Media Ecosystem here.
November 8, 2007
November 7, 2007
facebook etc.
[Facebook getting a lot of space on Techmeme, 'natch.]
[Related:] Great post from Doc Searls:
But the problem for Mark, for Jeremiah, and for all of us (including yours truly) is that we too easily default to framing our understanding of advertising in its own terms. We regard advertising as an independent variable: something ya gotta have. But in fact advertising is a dependent variable. The independent variable is the individual human being. As Chris Locke put it so perfectly nine years ago, we are not seats or eyeballs or end users or consumers. we are human beings and our reach exceeds your grasp. Deal with it.
November 5, 2007
isolate [my new business card]
This is the design for my new business card [No, I am not joking].
Feel free to use it yourself [or any other cartoon on gapingvoid] for your own schwag- biz cards, t-shirts, cubicle posters, PowerPoint slides, whatever. As per usual, the full details and regular licensing terms are here etc. Or again, as per usual, you can order printed gapingvoid business cards here at Streetcards etc etc.
[Yes, "Isolate Their Pain Centers" sums up my whole Hughtrain marketing schtick pretty well...]
new twitter logo
Just drew this new Twitter logo for my blog sidebar. Feel free to use it yourself etc.
My Twitter page is an increasingly important part of my online schtick, especially now with Seesmic [Twitter videos, kinda sorta] part of the equation.
November 4, 2007
london graphic centre
[I've been buying art supplies from these guys for years... Last time I was in their store I picked up one of their bizcards and doodled on it etc.]
October 30, 2007
avinash's business card
A wee cartoon I drew on the back of Avinash Kaushik's business card. Backstory here.
October 27, 2007
sex blogger consultant
[Part of the Southpark Series, San Francisco. Cartoon made for Ariel Waldman.]
October 26, 2007
killer app
Scott Beale published some of the cartoons I drew at the South Park picnic lunch earlier this afternoon.
[The full Flickr set is here.] [Update: Jeremy Keith's Flickr set is here.]
October 16, 2007
wii hands
My latest commission, from James Governor: A t-shirt design for Wii Hands i.e. Wii remotes turned into a Minority-Report-style user interface for SAP, the large German software company. Click on the video to see more.
October 6, 2007
October 5, 2007
"the one"
["Please". New York, 1998.]
6 years and 4000-odd blog posts later, if I was allowed to keep only one blog post, it would be this one.
Which one of yours would you keep?
[N.B. The question was, which is your TOP ONE post from YOUR blog, not gapingvoid etc. Feel free to leave a link in the comments etc etc.]
[Note to Self: Like Linda Skrocki said on Twitter, this would make a good meme etc.]
October 3, 2007
September 28, 2007
September 25, 2007
September 22, 2007
September 20, 2007
September 16, 2007
September 12, 2007
blip.tv
[photo credit: Steve Woolf.]
I've made a lot of t-shirts in my life. The one for blip.tv is without question one of my all-time favorites.
The shirt had an interesting genesis. I met up with blip.tv's Charles Hope for lunch the last time I was in New York. While we were waiting for the coffee to arrive, I drew him the cartoon, right there at the table. Within a few weeks Charles had taken the design and turned it into a t-shirt. The rest is history etc.
Hmmmm... Maybe I should be doing more of these.....
[Charles blogged both the lunch and the cartoon here.]
September 11, 2007
hi to frances
[Last night at a random geek dinner I had the pleasure of meeting Frances Berriman, who recently started working for the BBC. What the hell, on the spot I made her a drawing....]
September 9, 2007
September 8, 2007
September 3, 2007
August 29, 2007
software + services explained
This cartoon is now in Steve Clayton's collection. All to do with a conversation about Microsoft [Steve's employer] that we were having a few weeks ago.
Basically, with software companies, you have a balance of two axes: 1. How much of your offering is software vs. How much of your offering is services 2. How much of your offering resides in "the cloud", vs. How much of your offering resides on the desktop/handheld/personal object etc.
The ideal answer, of course, is that there's no right answer. In theory one should be able to change at moment's notice, and the software company should be able to accommodate said change at equally moment's notice. As Steve says,
Microsoft wants to be right there in the middle. The user gets to pick where they wanna be. I wonder if I can get Ray Ozzie to use this :)[This cartoon has been added to the Blue Monster cartoon series etc.]
August 28, 2007
August 25, 2007
blue monster postcard drawing
[Click on images to enlarge etc.]
Spent the afternoon in the pub drawing on the back of one of the Blue Monster postcards that Steve Clayton gave me at the recent London "Friends of The Blue Monster" breakfast [Facebook video here]...
August 24, 2007
August 20, 2007
August 19, 2007
July 22, 2007
July 19, 2007
July 15, 2007
July 10, 2007
July 9, 2007
July 8, 2007
July 7, 2007
just by the way
[Bous Link:] "Connected, Not Chanelled." JP Rangaswami: "But back to Microsoft. Maybe Hugh’s Blue Monster is having an impact after all. My faith in humanity is slowly being restored."
June 28, 2007
blip.tv t-shirts
The last time I was in New York I had lunch with two buddies of mine, Charles Hope of Blip.tv and Rachel Clarke of JWT [details here]. While we were waiting for the food to arrive I drew Charles the cartoon above, on the back of one of my business cards.
Charles just e-mailed me to say he's turned the design into some t-shirts. Rock on. Thanks, Charles!
June 17, 2007
but what if i fail
[One of the drawings I did for Seth Godin's latest book, "The Dip".]
Social Objects and Homeless People
So I've been thinking some more about Jyri's Five Principles of Social Objects, especially how they apply to gapingvoid:
1. You should be able to define the social object your service is built around.Somewhere along the line I figured out the easiest products to market are objects with "Sociability" baked-in. Products that allow people to have "conversations" with other folk. Seth Godin calls this quality "remarkablilty".In gapingvoid's case, that would be the cartoons for the most part. The straight writing part I'm less concerned about.
2. Define your verbs that your users perform on the objects. For instance, eBay has buy and sell buttons. It's clear what the site is for.
The verb that springs to mind is "share". Not only do people re-publish them on their blogs, they're also allowed to upload them onto other media for free: posters, t-shirts, stickers, whatever works for them. My licensing terms are pretty open.
3. How can people share the objects?
The key word here is "re-publish". Microsoft's Steve Clayton is probably the most well-known of my "re-publishers", as he's always using the Blue Monster cartoon for different things.
4. Turn invitations into gifts.
Again, the Blue Monster cartoon would serve as a good example. Microsoft employees hand out Blue Monster schwag as an invitation to start a conversation about Microsoft. The Blue Monster's main function is not about the message, the Blue Monster is about the social gesture.
5. Charge the publishers, not the spectators.
D'accord. The people who put the cartoons on their business cards are doing the paying, not the people receiving them.
For example: A street beggar holding out an ordinary paper cup cup won't start a conversation. A street beggar holding out a Starbucks cup will. I know this to be true, because it happened to me and a friend the other day, as we were walking down the street and a guy asked us for some spare change. Afterwards, as we were commenting about the rather sad paradox of a homeless guy plying his trade with a "luxury" coffee cup, my friend said, "Starbucks should be paying that guy."
Actually, my friend is wrong. Starbuck's doesn't need to be paying the homeless guy. Because Starbucks created a social object out of a paper cup, the homeless guy does their marketing for free, whether he knows it or not.
Although I suspect he does. I suspect somewhere along the line the poor chap figured out that holding out a Starbucks cup gets him more attention [and spare change] than an ordinary cup. And suddenly we're seeing social reciprocity between a homeless person and a large corporation, without money ever changing hands. Whatever your views are on the plight of homeless people, this is "Indirect Marketing" at its finest.
And of course, the way I market my cartoons and my other various enterprises is not all that dissimilar...
[Bonus Link:] A wonderfully thought-provoking podcast interview of Seth Godin. Disclosure: He kindly gives me a brief mention about 23.15 minutes into it.
June 8, 2007
May 28, 2007
silicon valley explained:
[Cartoon inspired by Paul Allen's recent post. Added to the Blue Monster Series etc.]
unified theory
[Click on image to enlarge/download/print etc. Licensing terms here.]
[Wikipedia Link: Unified Field Theory.]
[Link: "The Long Tail".]
untitled 697
[Click on image to enlarge/download/print etc. Licensing terms here.]
A couple of weeks ago I purchased a DVD of the 1979 Bob Fosse film, "All That Jazz". And I must have watched it at least half a dozen times since then.
I remember seeing it when it first came out, I must've been about fourteen at the time. I remember NOT GETTING IT. I guess the themes were just too mature for a young Scottish boarding school attendee.
But now that I am older and wiser... Wow.
The film, in simple terms, is about the death of a high-living Broadway choreographer, roughly based on Bob Fosse's own life. Though obviously Fosse wasn't dying when he made the film, he could still see the Devil looming from afar, getting all ready to claim his due [Fosse died suddenly eight years later, on a park bench in New York].
And as now I'm getting older, the themes really hit home with me. Mortality. Aaaargh. You realize that you're not going to live forever. You realize the "creative" path you embarked on does have its dark side. You realize you could've taken better care of yourself. You realize you could've made some better choices with your career.
This film captures these paradoxes perfectly. And yet the film is so utterly brilliant, sharp and sexy at the same time...
Anyway, I now consider this one of my favorite films of all time. Wonderful.
May 19, 2007
"technology changes"
What the heck, I liked Deb Schultz's "Tech Changes" line so much, I went and made it into a cartoon. Thanks for the inspiration, Deb.
[Note To Self:] I hope she doesn't sue me...
May 16, 2007
only talented people
[One of the cartoons I did for Seth Godin's new book, "The Dip".]
Zakamundo left the following comment here:
Hugh, you say "there are some seriously smart, good people working [at Microsoft] who yes, can still change the world for the better".Here's my reply:You may well be right. But the question that the recent court action poses, and the question that the comments on this thread suggests, and the question that even you appear defensive on, is this:
Can these people change Microsoft for the better?
Now it might be that Microsoft is great, and people don't realise it - then 'all' MS needs is a good and consistent marketing exercise. But it is a big corporation, and its intended audience (um, almost everyone?) will have perceptions with significant inertia. And thats assuming MSFT can stay on-message all the time - can they aspire to match the impact and values of Apple's marketing for instance?
Or it might be that Microsoft as a corporation is possessed by a corporate culture that generates external behavior that is jealous of others, patronising to its clients and bullying to those smaller. In which case the external audience's perceptions are rooted in reality, and the Blue Monster crowd have a problem on their hands.
I spent 15 years working in investment banking (derivatives trading) - full of hugely intelligent, focussed people. Some were great, and really did want to effect positive change from within. What I found fascinating, and somewhat depressing, was the longevity and all-pervasiveness of the corporate culture - different at each of the 3 institutions I worked for, but persistent at each one.
One example I can give : I too tried to change organisations from within, and was a major sponsor of the 'new' communication tools of wikis, chat and blogs at the most recent bank that employed me. Huge amounts of my management time and effort went into this, and yet each time I took my foot off the gas, the use of these tools would evaporate. There was a rather obvious lack of overt senior management support for the use and distribution of these tools, and that company is still stuck in the email age.
The way corporate life works is that change needs to come from the top down, as well as the bottom up. Feverish activity in the middle is at risk of being wasted. I think it is a pleasant diversion to dream of a better, fairer worlds, with corporate charters drawn up as a response to Cluetrain manifestoes, but my experience and observation is that it's just not how it works. Am more than happy to be proved or persuaded otherwise.
Sorry for the rant,
Z
No worries about the rant. That's what the blogosphere is for ;-)
I disagree with you, though, at least partially. I think small changes can lead to big changes. Though exactly how is not always immediately obvious from the onset [And we have thousands of years of mythology- everything from Homer, to Jesus, to King Arthur, to Star Wars- telling us the exact same thing].
What I like about the Blue Monster [and what I've liked from the very beginning] is that nobody owns the conversation- Not me, not MSFT, not the anti-MSFT crowd, not the media. It has a life of its own- which is what keeps it interesting...
[This entry has been added to the Blue Monster series.]
May 15, 2007
random thought
[Part of the Microsoft Blue Monster Series. Backstory from Steve and Kris etc.]
This cartoon came to me at about 4am this morning... I'm sure Kathy Sierra has said the same thing before, better than me etc...
[UPDATE:] From Jonathan Schwartz, CEO of Sun:
All of which is to say - no amount of fear can stop the rise of free media, or free software (they are the same, after all). The community is vastly more innovative and powerful than a single company. And you will never turn back the clock on elementary school students and developing economies and aid agencies and fledgling universities - or the Fortune 500 - that have found value in the wisdom of the open source community. Open standards and open source software are literally changing the face of the planet - creating opportunity wherever the network can reach.Free Ones. Free Zeros. It's all good etc.
[Note To Self:] My detractors think I'm pimping Microsoft. They are wrong. I'm pimping The Hughtrain. Heh.
May 14, 2007
kings and pawns
[One of the cartoons I did for Seth Godin's new book, "The Dip". Read Guy Kawasaki's excellent interview of Seth for more details etc.]
May 13, 2007
starting the conversation
My buddy Shel Israel asked me to draw a cartoon for his upcoming new media workshop, "Starting The Conversation". Voila!
Deborah Schultz, who I met last week in San Francisco, will also be on stage with Shel. Here she gives the skinny:
The gang at Social Media Club and Shel Israel have put together a series of workshops entitled: "Starting the Conversation". This series will be a practical guide to getting you comfortable with rules of the road and the tools to get your there. I am honored that they have asked me to present and participate in the Silicon Valley event on June 11th. Shel and I have a fun history of ribbing each other on stage - so it should be entertaining and educational. I am looking forward to it.And David Parmet's speaking, too. Rock on.
June 11th in Silicon Valley. Be there or be square etc etc.
great ideas
[This line was originally used in Chapter One of "How To Be Creative". I thought it would make a nice cartoon etc.]
stormhoek blue label
I drew this cartoon for an internal presentation at Stormhoek. People liked it so much we're now thinking of using it for one of the cartoon labels. Very cool.
Thoughts?
May 10, 2007
May 9, 2007
open source is a religion
[Cartoon part of the Microsoft Blue Monster Series. Backstory from Steve and Kris etc.]
[Bonus link- William Hurley:] "Seven Reasons Why Microsoft Loves Open Source."
[UPDATE- From JP Rangaswami:]
I agree vehemently with one thing William says. In reason 6, he makes the point[UPDATE- Jeff Atwood:]Microsoft doesn’t fear open source; it fears what the competition can do with it.This is true for all companies, and for all Because Effect infrastructure. By itself not to be feared (the With); yet feared for what your competitors can do with with (the Because Of).The moral of the story is: As infrastructure moves from the "With" state to the "Because Of" state, make sure you move with it. Because if you don’t and your competitors do, you’re on the road to Toast.
As a software developer, you're doing yourself a disservice by pledging allegiance to anything other than yourself and your craft-- whether it's Microsoft or the principle of free software. Stop with the us vs. them mentality. Let go of the partisanship. We're all in this thing together.
May 6, 2007
in new york
I'm in Manhattan, stopping over in New York on my way back home from Seattle. Tonight I'm having dinner with my old friend, Mark Mann.
On Friday I spent the entire day at Microsoft, which was really amazing. All these insanely smart people everywhere. Wow.
The day had many highlights, but I think my favorite would have to be meeting Steve Ball. We had a really great conversation mostly about Robert Fripp, Love and Vista [Steve used to play in Robert's band]. Steve writes about it here. He played some really incredible guitar, and I drew on one of his business cards [see pic above]. It was a really pleasure and honor hanging out with him.
Another guy I really liked was Jason Matusow. He had some seriously interesting things to say about Open Source. Apparently he knows my friend, James Governor as well, who he spoke very highly of. Small world.
Thanks especially to Kris Fuehr, who made the whole day possible. It was great hanging out with you, finally. Also thank you for leaving the following comment in a recent gapingvoid entry:
Thomas, you may be right that GapingVoid is assimilating Microsoft.And the geek dinner that followed in Pike's Market afterwards was terrific, as well. Thanks to Eric for pulling that together.I had the great honor of spending the entire day with Hugh yesterday. One of my colleagues at MS said after the meeting as he shook Hugh's hand: "Thanks Hugh, you really rocked my brain around". I think that sums it up. Hugh's probably on a plane to NYC now. What's fascinating is that Hugh just 'is'. He doesn't wear his agenda on his sleeve and, as you point out here, his curiosity and additive approach affords him great respect. He opened my eyes to a bunch of things. The ecosystem, the subtleties, the no zero-sum game, heck even music references.
Speaking of music--We met with Steve Ball which I'm sure Hugh will write about it. (I took video on our camera phones). A conversation with Steve is a sensory cornucpia. Steve is responsible for the way that Vista greets you each day. Poor Steve, a mountain of talent, he's trying to inch some of it into the millions of desktops and hampered by the need for Vista to be everything to everyone. (no electric guitars...wouldn't want to offend grandma!) Fascinating conversation between Hugh and Steve. They connected at so many levels conceptually, musically, socially, and there was this "jiffy pop" effect where they suddently were into a zone of thousand ping-pong phrases finishing each other's sentences, etc..
I have to say that the art Hugh practices requires a certain 'Master Po' quality to it. He has to help people realize things on their own by asking questions. You then have the chance to internalize them - own them as your own. Here, I am Grasshopper and while many times I understand what Hugh says, sometimes it takes me a few hours or days to really internalize it, but it eventually happens and Hugh is pretty patient. (I think)
Hugh's curiosity with Microsoft comes not from anything related to 'sell-out' (by any means) It's his interest in the re-invention. The simple models that Hugh was white-boarding with us yesterday were so deep and meaningful, but so simply expressed. I think this symbiotic relationship is far tipped in Microsoft's benefit vs. Hugh's so you should try some different words than 'sell-out'. Maybe 'point-out'?
Quick sidebar that made me chuckle (and it gives me a chance to try on some of what I've learned). Hugh and I used the hand-manipulatable Virtual Earth glass table). The demo lets you use your hands to zoom/pan/move the 3D map and Hugh asked if this was Google Earth.
Now, shutting off my cheerleading tendencies where I normally would say: "yes! It's Microsoft's Virtual Earth which is so cool in the following ways....."
Rather, I'm going to say: Microsoft does have a earth-to-street-level 2-D & 3-D mapping solution. The team who worked on it were asked to build features that would be more compelling and useful than anything currently available. You can try it an see if they succeeded in doing that local.live.com. Google and Microsoft each have areas of strengths in different cities. Many people are comparing different cities and discussing which they prefer and where. e.g. while Google has a 3d rendition of a stadium in San Francisco, Microsoft has a detailed view of the building in the Vegas strip. Which you pick may depend on which areas you focus on. You can see a side-by-side comparison at http://www.jonasson.org/maps/.A lot of people are infected with the HughTrain bug. Having him explain it in person has been even more enlightening. I think next time, we'll just reserve a room for 500+ and broaden the discussion. Next trip Hugh?
HINT: Hugh's masterplan? Every time the blue monster is exposed to techies through Microsoft or other channels, Stormhoek's name is embedded directly to its target market. Mwah, ha ha! Happy to oblige, Hugh. It's brilliant.
-Kris
I've had a really great trip this time round, I have to say. This whole Blue Monster thing seems to be taking on a life of its own. Steve and I have lots to talk about, when I get back to London.
[UPDATE:] The latest Blue Monster lithograph finally sold for £150 [approx $300 US] on e-Bay. Wow.
April 30, 2007
April 28, 2007
the echo chamber [revisited]
Is it just me, or would "The Echo Chamber" make a good cartoon for the Microsoft Blue Monster Series?
You know, "MS has got to get outside of the Echo Chamber, outside of Redmond increasingly more often if it wishes to stay relevant long-term" etc etc etc.
I've changed the line from the original red to black. I never liked the red, not sure why...
Meanwhile, the other night at the Girl Geek Dinner, Sarah Blow told me that before I arrived at the event, there was some conversation going on at one of the tables about gapingvoid "being assimilated by Microsoft".
I can see their point, but this is kind of short-term thinking to me. In the past, I've been assimilated by many things in the last few years- the cartoons, the suit business, the wine business, the advertising business, the marketing business, whatever takes my fancy at the time. Somehow the blog keeps ticking along, regardless.
My attitude is, as long as I keep drawing new cartoons, things will stay interesting. If I stop, things will peter out. The cartoons are the canary in the coal mine etc.
[Bonus Link:] It was great meeting David Terrar in the flesh, finally. Here's his take on the Girl Geek Dinner.
April 21, 2007
every time i open my wallet
[Part of the Microsoft Blue Monster Series. Backstory from Steve and Kris etc.]
the problem with being in tech marketing
[Click on image to enlarge etc. Part of the Microsoft Blue Monster Series. Backstory from Steve and Kris etc.]
[Bonus Link:] "I'd rather be Microsoft than Yahoo."
April 20, 2007
change my stats
[Cartoon part of the Microsoft Blue Monster Series.]
I drew this one at a pub in Chiswick last week. Microsoft's Chris Parkes explains.
April 17, 2007
history of my blog
[Click on image to enlarge etc. Inspired by Robert Scoble's recent post.]
[UPDATE- Speaking of Twitter:] My take on the recent Edelman shitstorm? Steve apologised, and John accepted the apology. Errare humanem est. Move along folks, there's nothing more to see.
On a personal note, two thoughts:
1. Poor ol' Steve. We all say and do things we regret, however innocently, and the shitstorm builds into some huge monster beyond one's control. Anybody with a high-profile blog and a salaried day job will feel Steve's pain, because THEY KNOW it might be them next time.
2. As far as this particular shitstorm goes, I suspect it a lot of it is generated not by some allegedly heinous moral breach on Steve's part, but by a genuine [and mostly undisclosed] desire by other people to see him and his colleagues fail. I've been blogging long enough to be able to spot the vultures circling overhead.
[Bonus Link:] Edelman Europe's CEO David Brain tried out Twitter. Decided it wasn't for him.
[Disclosure: I have a relationship with Edelman, and consider them good friends of mine.]
April 16, 2007
evil bunny
[Inspired by comments in this gapingvoid post.]
[Comment- Hamish:]
Actually,[Hamish and I are old high school buddies.]"Businesses are run by groups of conflicting kleptocrats who use their internal power base to make a play for more of the rent they are collecting at the expense of employees and shareholders, whilst using their ability to hold the other kleptocrats hostage with their internal power base as a bargaining counter, of which IT is actually quite a good one..."
Might be more accurate, but it surely is not as concise...
penguin
[Yes. I know. There's no way in God's Earth that Microsoft would ever allow me to officially include this cartoon into the Blue Monster series, nor am I submitting to them as such [I can already see their legal department turning white], but hey, I thought it was a funny drawing...]
how well does open source currently meet the needs of shareholders and ceo's?
["Science Project": part of the Microsoft Blue Monster Series. Backstory from Steve and Kris etc.]
This cartoon was an attempt by me to sum up the answer to a very simple question: If Open Source software is free, then why bother spending money on Microsoft Partner stuff?
I already know what Microsoft's detractors will say: "There's no reason whatsoever. $40 billion per year is totally wasted."
This, however is not a very satisfying answer, simply because it doesn't quite ring true. Otherwise there'd be a lot more famous Open Source billionaires out there, being written up in Forbes Magazine or wherever. And Bill Gates would've been ousted years ago.
I know very little about software, so my hunch is that the reason Microsoft is able to make money, is simply that running a large business with 2000 people on the payroll requires very different ways of going about it, than just hacking together something in your garage. Open Source may be free [at least at first], but how well does it scale? How well does Open Source currently meet the needs of shareholders and CEOs?
You tell me. Anybody who has more insight than me [pro or anti Microsoft, I don't care], please feel free to leave a comment, Thanks.
[Comment- Darcy Moen:]"Hugh, the question you need to answer is: Does software drive business development, or does need drive software development?"
Darcy, I think that is a question we all have yet to answer fully. I don't think anybody has cracked it 100% yet.
The way you framed your comment [read it in its entirety below] implies that the gap that separates what you aspire to do, and what you are actually doing with software is minimal. Even knowing what little I know about how IT works in the REAL world, I am not entirely convinced.
The "Microsoft vs Open Source" question doesn't interest me so much. The question, "What/How does Microsoft have to do/change if it wishes to survive the next thirty years" interests me greatly. And not just Microsoft, either...
[UPDATE:] "Why are the open source business people not ultra-rich yet?" Serious food for thought.
[UPDATED:] JP Rangaswami. "10 Reasons For Enterprise To Use Open Source."
[UPDATE:] Seth Godin. "It's not often that I disagree with Hugh, but this time, I do..."
[UPDATE:] Rick Segal. "Shareholders, CEOs, and (for the most part) Investors are generally clueless when it comes to the beginnings of your great idea. You take the tools (whatever they are), your vision, and your passion into the game. You create a solution and see if the dogs eat it. You don't worry about pleasing anyone, just fix the problem. If it was worth fixing, if the product/service you offer has value/meaning to people, you are there. Your shareholders and your investors will be happy after your customers are."
[Comment- James:] If Microsoft views me as a customer, then why do they go out of their way to get me the tools needed to drive sales on their behalf? Why am I always getting reminders about the free services they provide? I have yet to be approached by Microsoft to purchase software/products. Not once. Other companies flood me with product offerings that they want me to buy. Microsoft doesn't. They give me what I need to drive sales, which ultimately some ends in MS's coffers, but also puts some in mine as well. I've come out ahead in my Partnership with Microsoft to this point, I wouldn't say I'm a customer based on that. Customers end up on the negative side of the money equation, not ahead.
[AFTERTHOUGHT:] I am sad to report that Microsoft's Steve Clayton has gone on vacation this week, so we won't be having his wonderful contributions in the comments section for a while. But I'm hoping other MS folk and Partners will join in the discussion in his absence etc.]
[Bonus Link:] "10 things they didn't tell you about blogging." Fabulous.
April 13, 2007
she loves me
[Click on image to enlarge/download/print etc. Licensing terms here etc.]
Thanks to everyone who met me for dinner last night: Euan, Adriana, James, Johnnie and Mark.
Everybody there I knew quite well, with the exception of Mark Earls, who I was meeting for the first time.
It was great to meet Mark finally- he's one of my heroes, thanks to this book. And it turns out he's been reading gapingvoid for the last year or so.
It was a good crowd. We should do it again soon...
April 12, 2007
lots of ideas
[Cartoon part of the Microsoft Blue Monster Series. Backstory from Steve and Kris etc.]
Tim Kitchin of Glasshouse Partners left the following comment on my big "Microsoft Partner" entry:
Not that I have clue what you're going to do for Microsoft...but I sort of applaud MS for pushing out the 'ecosystem' word in favour of the old fashioned 'partner'.Here are some thoughts:On the other hand partner is a really clumsy word to describe the array of interdependencies and power imbalances which really exist out there.
A lot of richness gets lost when you clump 750,000 companies into one category like 'partners'.
If you can provoke some more structured conversations around mutual value-exchange, that would be a big step forward for them.
1. "Is "Partner" the best word possible? Maybe, maybe not. Then again, if I had a small, tech-orientated company- a small town consultancy in Vermont with only one or two employees, say, I imagine I would LOVE being thought of as a "partner"of Microsoft, as opposed to just a "middleman" or a "user". It would convey to my customers that, whatever others may think about me, at the end of the day, MS takes me seriously. Not a bad message to be sending out from Vermont.
2. "Microsoft Ecosystem Member." Not sure if that works too well, either.
3. What Microsoft does is so vast and complex, it's hard getting the big picture sometimes [Hint: they don't just make stuff for PCs]. The good news is, there's so much going on in the company, I'm not too worried about running out of cool, new stuff to write about.
4. This project I'm doing with Microsoft is not the result of some grand, evil scheme on my part. It started very small, only a couple of weeks ago. Somebody inside Microsoft asked me to draw some cartoons for the Partner Group. A couple of dozen rough sketches and e-mail exchanges later, I thought it would be more interesting to just post my efforts online, and see the conversation we were having privately mutate into something much bigger. Happily, they liked the idea and gave me an immediate greenlight. But I truly believe that this spirit of spontaneity is what will keep the project interesting in the long term. Rock on.
April 10, 2007
campaign tagline
[Cartoon part of the Microsoft Blue Monster Series. Backstory from Steve and Kris etc.]
[One More Time:] "For too long, Microsoft has allowed other people- the media, the competition and their detractors, especially- to tell their story on their behalf, instead of doing a better job of it themselves.
We firmly believe that Microsoft must start articulating their story better- what they do, why they do it, and why it matters- if they're to remain happy and prosperous long-term."
[Bonus Link] From JP Rangaswami:
Think about it. What keeps the ecosystem going? Who is the pest? Who is the parasite? And is the plant healthy as a result?Distribution channels are partners. Ecosystem members are partners. Customers are partners.
As we move from proprietary to open worlds, we are seeing another transition. The customer is becoming the partner. And not a day too soon.
i seem to prefer it
[Cartoon part of the Microsoft Blue Monster Series. Backstory from Steve and Kris etc.]
One of the ideas I've been playing around with the Microsoft Partner Group is- the idea of "crossing the chasm".
i.e. Crossing the chasm between tinkering away with a neat new idea in your garage, vs taking the idea and turning it into a viable long-term business.
i.e. Crossing the chasm between "Idea" and "Execution". That is where the bodies pile up etc.
And maybe, just maybe, Microsoft is a better option for making this crossing than Linux. Maybe not in all instances, but maybe for the guy who they're trying to sell a package to, oh yes they are.
This cartoon was kinda me thinking along those lines...
April 9, 2007
the network
[Cartoon part of the Microsoft Blue Monster Series. Backstory from Steve and Kris etc.]
[Bonus Link:] Microsoft's Steve Clayton responds to the recent "Microsoft is Dead" meme.
Overall I think it's a well written post and has some very valid points. The main point is nobody fears Microsoft these days. GREAT - that's progress I think. Why should people fear Microsoft? That's what got us a bad name in the first place![P.S. I got the line, "The network is more powerful than the node" from Adriana.]
April 7, 2007
tiny ship
[Cartoon part of the Microsoft Blue Monster Series. Backstory from Steve and Kris etc.]
If you look in the comments of the previous post, you'll see some really smart discussions about Microsoft going on.
Especially nice to see Robert Scoble [formerly of Microsoft] chiming in:
Steve: a lot of people inside Microsoft think what I did for three years [at Microsoft] was be an arrogant, egotistical asshat.Microsoft's Steve Clayton [one of the guys responsible for getting me this gig] replied to Robert:They missed the little secret sauce that I fell into by accident: these tools let you listen to customers and influentials and haters and respond.
I know of one cool team at Redmond that's about to bring out something small at Mix07. It's not a big thing that'll kill Amazon or Google. It's a small thing. But it'll get lots of hype.
Why?
Because they demonstrated they are listening to the conversation that's happening out there across tons of tech blogs.
That's what's magical about Microsoft letting average employees blog: it guarantees that a few will fall into the same secret sauce I did and will have to listen to people outside of Redmond for a few minutes a day.
It just was frustrating to me that I couldn't get the leadership to really listen too.
Robert - some good arguments. Big companies clearly find it harder to take risks and as you showed whilst at Microsoft, it's the people on the ground who take the risks (both personal and on behalf of the company). Hugh got hired by some risk takers at Corp, not by Bill and Co.And of course, the unsinkable Dennis Howlett had something to say:With respect to Amazon, Google and others a major difference is Microsoft's channel approach. Sure Microsoft will release something cool and innovative every now and then but more interesting is the channel of partners doing that on the Microsoft platform - people like Skinkers, Mydeo, Caspian, Horsesmouth, Dotnet, Thirteen23 and many more. That's a pretty serious business engine that most observers of Microsoft miss. As Hugh says, we need to make them the rock stars as they're a huge competitive advantage to Microsoft.
When the Blue Monster finally caves in and says: 'we're dicounting 90% on the commodity but you pay for the real extras' then I'll be a huge fan. As it is, Microsoft sucks calories from IT that it doesn't deserve. That's why it is pretty much shut out of recruitment in the Valley- where the innovators are working. Or at least that's what your company's innovation team leader tells me.Hopefully people inside Microsoft are seeing this...No amount of fun stuff that Hugh does will change that. This ain't consumery stuff that you can decide to take or not. This is serious business stuff with real $$/££/€€ at stake.
April 5, 2007
gapingvoid has been assimilated!
[ "Art Money". Part of the Blue Monster Series. Backstory from Steve and Kris etc.]
I'm pleased to announce that I have a new client. A small software concern in Redmond, Washington. An offshoot of the Blue Monster conversation we've been having.
So what has this cartoon got to do with software? I'll explain later. Watch this space.
April 1, 2007
drowning
[Click on image to enlarge/download/print etc. Licensing terms here etc.]
[Bonus Link:] Dave Winer on tech markets:
My own two cents, when thinking about declining tech markets, something I've seen four or five times -- when a boom is tailing off is the best time to invest in truly new ideas. People's thinking has been going in one direction for a long time, so long that all the big or obvious ideas have been tried, many times, and people are creatively exhausted. It's a good time to change your assumptions, head off in a different direction. Everyone's been zigging, so now it's time to zag.
March 31, 2007
ffff...
[Click on image to enlarge/download/print etc. Licensing terms here etc.]
[Bonus Link:] My favorite band at the moment is Mice Parade.
March 25, 2007
does everybody think you're an idiot
[Click on image to enlarge/download/print etc. Licensing terms here etc.]
March 18, 2007
tell me you love me
[This cartoon was drawn as a gift to Manola, at last Thursday's Miami Geek dinner.]
March 17, 2007
February 27, 2007
February 26, 2007
February 18, 2007
February 2, 2007
passion's easy
[A wee drawing I cranked out this morning on the front of one of my embossed calling cards that I got from Smythson's of Bond Street...]
January 24, 2007
road trip dates confirmed
[Click on image to enlarge/download/print etc. Licensing terms here etc.]
My dates for my Stormhoek Valentine's Roadtrip have been confirmed:
February 2nd: Inverness, Corstorphine [Edinburgh].3rd: Newcastle, Durham, Tadcaster.
4th: Blackpool, Bidston Moss [Merseyside], Horwich, Warrington.
5th: Stockport [Manchester], Altrichham [Manchester], Redditch [Worcestershire], Cardiff [Wales].
6th: Yeovil [Somerset], Bournemouth.
7th: Purley, Gatwick, Chichester.
8th: Sandhurst, Bursledon, Cirencester.
9th: Reading, Newbury, Abingdon.
10th: Barr Hill, Royston, Watford.
11th: Aylesbury, Ipswitch.
12th: Cheshunt [Herts.], Colchester.
13th: Pitsea [Essex], Twickenham.
14th: Brooklands [Surrey], New Malden [Surrey].
You can download a more detailed itinerary here: [Word Document].
Cut and paste the postcode in the Word doc into Google Maps or Mapquest to get super-precise directions. If any bloggers want to meet me in Tesco's while I'm there, or maybe a drink in the evening, just phone me on my mobile on the day +44 (0) 770 309 9462.
We knocked down the final number of stores I'll be visiting by about a third, sadly. In the end we decided we wanted to spend more than ten minutes in each store, so there was really nothing else to do.
If this goes well, there's already talk of doing something similar in both Germany and the USA. The virus spreads.
January 22, 2007
January 13, 2007
i move with the times
[Click on image to enlarge/download/print etc. Licensing terms here etc.]
[Bonus Link:] Edelman's European CEO, David Brain, is very bullish on 2007. Watch the video.
January 12, 2007
worship
Re. "The Hippy Cartoon". John writes in the comments:
You read things like The Electric Kool-Aid Acid Test and such and you realize that hippies (like beatniks before them) scared the living fuck out of people until they expanded from a group of vocal and highly political artists and writers to a bunch of angsty stoner kids not wanting to go to Vietnam.Anything that [A] makes big promises and [B] has very low barriers to entry, often has a tendency to unravel rather spectacularly.
Bloggers, be warned! Heh.
January 11, 2007
steve jobs just farted
I'm starting to suspect that Apple couldn't stay out of the news even if their lives depended on it...
wasted confused
[Note to Self:] For matters of entrepreneurship, I'm finding Rick Segal increasingly "required reading". He seems to be on dynamite form these days.
January 10, 2007
the next google
[Cartoon inspired by Guy Kawasaki's recent post.]
Madison Avenue and Web 2.0
If you're currently working in a large Madison Avenue ad agency, chances are you have already been asked by a lot of your big clients, about what the heck you're going to do about this whole Web 2.0 thing.
And of course, you haven't got a clue. You got into the business for the award-winning TV commercials, let's not kid ourselves.
Still, maybe you can buy your career another twelve months of life by trying to fob off a third-rate, client-branded MySpace or YouTube clone, or whatever.
"Yeah! Millions of people are going to come our social software site and interact, chat, send messages, post their photos, movies, music files and oh yeah, buy our bathroom cleaner as well..."
Yep. We already know where this is going. We saw the same thing happen in Web 1.0:
[A] Madison Avenue tries to copy Silicon Valley andThat being said, your clients still have a legitimate concern, which isn't going to go away. Namely, how do they realistically mesh with Web 2.0? That's where the smart money is going, after all.
[B] does a really bad job of it and
[C] does it four years too late.
[D] Ouch. Ouch. Pain.
Having pondered this question, I think I may have come up with an answer.
Usually I'm happy to share these kinds of ideas with everybody via this blog. Not this time. It's too good.
But if you want me to tell you what I came up with, feel free to write me out a check for $100,000 and put me on a year's retainer at say, $15,000 per month. Then maybe we'll talk.
Groovy.
Reader Comment: Rachel Clarke[UPDATE:] Rachel also sent me this:I'm already being asked. A lot. But so far managing to move them away from 'we want to be YouTube' to having far more realistic expectations. And what we do works, sometimes. It almost always comes down to control though. And lawyers. And fear. Breaking that down is the hard job.
CAMBRIDGE, Mass. – December 13, 2006 – Just over half (52%) of Chief Marketing Officers (CMOs) believe that traditional, large advertising agencies are ill-suited to meet online marketing needs, according to a study of senior marketing executives conducted by Evalueserve and released today by Sapient (NASDAQ: SAPE). Similarly, 49% of survey respondents believe that traditional advertising firms have difficulty thinking beyond traditional print and TV media models, which no longer are effective ways of engaging consumers who now get their information and influence one another primarily through digital channels.
January 7, 2007
if you ever
[Click on image to enlarge/download/print etc. Licensing terms here etc.]
[Bonus Link:] Michael Arrington's best article for a while [which is saying something, believe me].
January 4, 2007
it wasn't
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PS. I sprained my wrist. Very painful. Will be away from keyboard for a while. Please minimize the e-mails for now, thanks.
PPS. Yes, it was worth it.
January 3, 2007
January 2, 2007
January 1, 2007
mortality
Phew. Just got back from my first run in London for years. I did about 15 minutes, carrying 2 kg. weights [which get surprisingly heavy after a while].
My New Year's resolution is to run every day, and lift free weights twice a week. Let's see if I can make it to February!
I'm at the age where if one doesn't do something, one tends to not stick around for very much longer.
I'm supposed to quit smoking this year, also. I'll believe it when I see it.
When I was up in Glasgow this autumn, some friends of mine went to a funeral. I didn't know the fellow, but he was only 46 when he keeled over from a fatal heart attack.
The thing is, he wasn't that much older, or lived that much unhealthier, than a lot of my friends. Let's just say the sentence before this one was a common conversational thread that day.
Food for thought...
December 31, 2006
December 25, 2006
worship ye
[Link:] Personent Hodie.
1. Personent hodieMerry Christ-Mass, Everybody.
voces puerulae,
laudantes iucunde
qui nobis est natus,
summo Deo datus,
et de virgineo ventre procreatus.2. in mundo nascitur,
pannis involvitur
praesepi ponitur
stabulo brutorum,
rector supernorum.
perdidit spolia princeps infernorum.3. magi tres venerunt,
parvulum inquirunt,
parvulum inquirunt,
stellulam sequendo,
ipsum adorando,
aurum, thus, et myrrham ei offerendo.4. omnes clericuli,
pariter pueri,
cantent ut angeli:
advenisti mundo,
laudes tibi fundo.
ideo gloria in excelsis Deo.
December 24, 2006
i miss you
[Click on image to enlarge/download/print etc. Licensing terms here etc.]
[Bonus Jazz Links:] John Coltrane playing "My Favorite Things" on YouTube. And here is some Django Rheinhardt. Notice how he only used two fingers to play guitar [his other two were paralyzed in a fire when he was a kid etc].
December 18, 2006
antichrist
[Cartoon inspired by Loic Le Meur's recent post.]
[Bonus Link:] Jeff Clavier reflects on Le Web 3.
December 17, 2006
untitled 465
I'm back home in Cumbria, chilling out before the Christmas break. I am too tired/busy to write much, but here's a list of stuff on my mind:
1. The cartoon above pretty much represents my current emotional state. It's been a long couple of months, mostly spent in London hotel rooms. I feel a bit burnt out, to be honest.
2. Rumor has it that I have found a flat in London [Pimlico neighborhood], and will be moving in early March. My main focus for 2007 will be London-based, as Stormhoek and the English Cut shirt project get busier and busier.
3. Loic posts his reply to the whole Techcrunch UK mess. I know him well enough to know he's telling the truth. Some of the stuff left in the comment section I found "Beyond Lame".
4. I was over at the Edelman London offices last week, talking to some people I know there, for my usual cynical, evil and mercenary reasons that we all know and love so well.
Here is one thought I came away with: As traditional, Madison-Avenue-style advertising gets more expensive and less relevant by the day, as the traditional mainstream media advertising business model gets continues to nosedive, where is all the client's business going to move to, as it seeks out greener pastures? Google? Perhaps. Purple Cow? Sure. But where else?
Seriously. Where else?
There's big money to be made by anyone who can provide the market with a half-decent answer.
December 15, 2006
December 10, 2006
whining
[Click on image to enlarge/download/print etc. Licensing terms here etc.]
[Bonus Link:] Doc Searls:
What's different now is that I'm far more capable, energetic, optimistic and eager to change the world at 59 than I ever was at any earlier age.I can relate. I'm also a bit of a late bloomer. Long story. I guess it beats peaking too early etc.
how do i make money blogging?
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December 9, 2006
December 8, 2006
haunted
[Click on image to enlarge/download/print etc. Licensing terms here etc.]
[Bonus Link:] The always-entertaining John T. Unger's "Amicable Heretic Manifesto:"
4. You're only entitled to the opinions you've thought through. You can only do that if you use hard data. Opinions you adopt from others are other people's opinions, not yours.[gapingvoid manifesto submission guidelines are here.][Manifesto archive is here.]5. Fear is caused by thinking you have an answer when in fact, you haven't done anything to get one.
6. Belief in one truth over all others debases that truth. There are always a lot of truths, some of which can be simultaneously and contradictorily true.
7. Having no good flaws is worse than having no good traits.
December 4, 2006
December 2, 2006
November 24, 2006
November 23, 2006
November 22, 2006
November 13, 2006
web 3.0
[Link to all the recent "Web 3.0" brou-ha-ha on Techmeme. The journo at the NYT is pretty much getting slammed, and rightly so.]
November 12, 2006
markets are
[Click on image to enlarge/download/print etc. Licensing terms here etc.]
P.S. Yes, I've got the new scanner. This was drawn on paper, not Tablet PC.
November 11, 2006
November 10, 2006
November 9, 2006
November 8, 2006
November 5, 2006
November 3, 2006
November 2, 2006
October 31, 2006
how to lose your girlfriend
[Click on image to enlarge/download/print etc. Licensing terms here etc.]
October 30, 2006
October 29, 2006
October 27, 2006
October 22, 2006
![[N.B. original photo of cartoon here.]](http://www.gapingvoid.com/0710verynicetomeetyou.jpg){kind=link}
October 21, 2006
hooray for
[Click on image to enlarge/download/print etc. Licensing terms here etc.]