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I just discovered an excellent  new TEDTalk featuring illusionist David Blaine. There’s an important lesson here as Blaine explains:

1) The process of trial and error

2) How much research went into these stunts

When I was at MAS Chris Owens (The Richards Group) said that “the Planner has to be the most confident person in the room.”

Confidence comes from preparation, and preparation comes from making mistakes and doing your research — often going above and beyond what other people are willing to do.

He ends his presentation with this:

“As a magician I try to show things to people that seem impossible, and I think magic, whether I’m holding my breath or holding a deck of cards, is pretty simple: It’s practicing, it’s training and experimenting while pushing through the pain to be the best I can be…and that’s what magic is to me.”

People just LOVE to post videos of themselves dancing. Obviously, not everyone’s video gets viewed by millions of people, but these videos have the qualities that make them spread like wildfire:

1. They’re simple

2. They’re interesting

3. They’re easily shared

Here’s the newest one I discovered today followed by some classics:

Last night we spent an incredible lecture session with Richard Montura, a Strategic Planner from La Comunidad in Miami. He didn’t come to us to specifically talk about Planning, but to discuss his observations from traveling all over the world for two years.

His story was fun, inspiring and entertaining. To paraphrase one of my Planner friends, “I thought I knew a lot about this stuff, but he made me feel like a child all over again.”

From the author’s website:

“Nearly 10 years into the 21st century, a new creative world is forming.

Very soon, a lot of the world’s best art, fashion, music, entertainment, media, design, and style will be coming to you from Brazil, Russia, India, and China. The BRICs have been tipped by Goldman Sachs (who coined the acronym) to become four of the six largest economies in the world by 2050. But it isn’t just about the money.

BRIC Pop reveals another side to these four countries: their rising creative and cultural power. It’s just as significant as their economic story, and has major implications for entertainment, media, creative and marketing industries in the U.S., Europe, and Japan. Plus, it’s fun.

I spent two years traveling to 42 cities, from Ahmedabad to Yekaterinburg, discovering first-hand how the BRICs have shifted from exporters of products, services, and commodities to arbiters of pop cultural ‘cool’.”

Visit the BRIC POP site

A lot of people say that this is their favorite Ted Talk, and I really enjoyed it too. I just watched it for my first time today. A few quotes from the presentation:

“Kids will take a chance – they’re not frightened of being wrong…If you’re not prepared to be wrong, you’ll never come up with anything original.”

“Picasso once said all children are born artists. The problem is to remain an artist as we grow up. We don’t grow into creativity..we grow out of it.”

“If you think of it the whole system of public education around the world is a protracted process of university entrance. And the consequence is that many highly talented, brilliant, creative people think they’re not, because the thing they were good at at school wasn’t valued or it was actually stigmatized.”

“We know 3 things about intelligence: 1) It’s diverse 2)It’s dynamic 3) It’s distinct”

It’s interesting how right on Sir Ken Robinson is during this talk. He basically says the educational system – not just in the U.S.,  but everywhere in the world, is fundamentally flawed, because it mirrors itself after its educators. Professors, he says, “Live in their heads.” They’re focused on Mathematics, Literature and Science, and the Arts are always placed at the bottom of the educational hierarchy. As a result, students who excel at the Arts and creativity aren’t celebrated – they’re perceived as inadequate. This thinking stifles our creativity instead of nurturing it.

Clever little video that was a finalist in AARP U@50 contest. I love the simplicity of it.

via Paul Isakson’s blog

UPDATE: Feb. 3rd

I should point out that another video by Argentinean agency TBWA/Savaglio created this concept first. It won the silver lion in the Cannes Lions Contest in 2006, which was about a year before “Lost Generation” came out.

Terrific stop-motion video:

via BuzzFeed

This video is awesome. Why can’t more be like this?

Thanks to Iain Tait for sharing on Crackunit.