So I know it has been awhile since I have posted here on Contagious and I swear it’s not because I am slacking. It’s because I have been spending the majority of my time here and here recently.

This morning I was inspired to update this blog to talk about being a finger, not a nostril. There is a joke that I heard a long time ago that I always seem to whip out at parties during that time after you meet someone and you realize you have very little in common with that person but you need to say something. Here’s how it goes:

Why do gorillas have big nostrils? Because they have big fingers.

Funny right? Yeah, not one of those jokes where people leave the party commenting on how hilarious I am by any stretch. But this joke does bring up an interesting topic on how you do work, push the envelope, and blaze new trails. The joke insinuates that the gorilla’s nostrils got big because his fingers were so big and it stretched them out. It did not mean his fingers grew larger to accommodate the large nostrils. This is an interesting distinction.

Playing in an existing space, bouncing around on the inside and exploring is fine. You see people and companies do it all the time. But until people start “enlarging the nostrils” by pushing from the inside, nothing will ever grow, evolve, and advance.

We’ve had our fun in the social media/Web 2.0 space. We’ve gone to the parties, the Tweetups, and the conventions. We’ve tried “our best” to convince big companies and clients to have a social media presence only to fall short with a measley Facebook page that hasn’t been updated in 2 months. Now it’s time to enlarge the nostrils. Who’s ready to wield a bigger finger?

Gorilla image from Nailbender. Some rights reserved.

Love him or hate him, Loren Feldman may be known in the future as the one who jumpstarted the popularity of video commenting. Or maybe the correct word is the “necessity” of video commenting not the popularity of it.

This is the video that I am referring to:

Confused? Well, it started with this article on Tech Crunch today. In the post Michael Arrington reported that video blogger Loren Feldman, in response to an interview with billionaire Mark Cuban, wrote, “Mark Cuban is not a tech visionary. He is a lucky bastard. Broadcast.com was a joke,” Read more…

It is an ad that gets your foot tapping along to a re-imagination of a classic tune. It pulls at the memory strings of everything that made sense to you in high school. And you were afraid to blink in fear that you will miss another little nugget of delight. I’m talking about the new Breakfast Club-inspired ad for JC Penny and created by Saatchi & Saatch.

Sounds awesome right? Too bad it is a case of agency self-indulgence that loses sight on the primary goal of every ad: connecting with your target audience.

Although this ad recreates scenes from the great Breakfast Club movie that people my age loves, it won’t mean diddly to teenagers of today. After all, a high school student was born in the early 90’s, at least 5 years after the release of the movie voted best high school movie of all time by Entertainment Weekly. Read more…

How far do you have to go these days to prove that you are who you say you are? That is the question I have been thinking about all day after I saw this Tweet from Chris Pirillo yesterday morning.

“Surprise! @johntesh is following more people than are following him”

Of course the first thing I did was visit John Tesh on Twitter. But when I got to his page I was skeptical. Sure, I see John Tesh’s image as the Twitter background. And I see the name John Tesh in the “About” box. But populated in his Twitterstream is simply a bunch of one sentence titles with TinyURL links. At this point my skepticism turned to doubt. This must be some person who for some reason felt he would latch onto the super popular John Tesh brand and link to his own blog.

Read more…

Today on the train, I finished watching the movie, Cashback. In the movie, the main character breaks up with his girlfriend, becomes an insomniac, works the night shift in a grocery store and then finds out he can stop time. Whatever. It’s an ok movie. But it did produce this great line: “She caught the wrong second of a 2 second story.” This line is uttered after his new girlfriend spots him on the receiving end of a kiss fro his ex. What she didn’t see was him pushing her away immediately after.

What can you take from this? Well, I can’t help but think how this applies to the actions or inactions of your company. In this age of consumer activism, 24 hour cameras, and the rabid blogosphere, one wrong move can mean disaster.

Customers are a finicky bunch of people. You may have 1 second to grab their attention and cause them to act. Make sure they don’t see the wrong second.