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Add a little Star Wars geek to your Super Bowl party this year. Make a VW Intergalactic party invite, and see you, your family, and friend's names in a custom Star Wars text crawl.

And of course get directions to your big throw down. 

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A documentary of one of my favorite albums of its era, The Soft Bulletin. Thanks to Pitchfork for a great video series in CLASSIC.

http://pitchfork.com/tv/pitchfork-classic/1885-the-flaming-lips-the-soft-bull...

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I am on a New Year, Netflix documentary kick. I stumbled on this one last night: Senna: The Man. The Legend. It documents the career of the late Formula 1 Brazilian racing phenom, Ayrton Senna. The footage is so intimate, raw, and unfiltered that you actually feel like you're in the pit and car with him. It's an entertaining, intense, and revealing glimpse into this sport and portrait of a brilliant, soulful, and enigmatic athlete. Racing fan or not, it's worth checking out.

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My (real) fireside talk with Brian Morrissey at the 2011 Digiday Data Marketing Summit in Deer Valley, Utah. Good times. 

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The Provo Bros - mining powder at Retallack, British Columbia from The Provo Bros on Vimeo.

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Yesterday we launched a digital experiment called #30Days2Beta. The idea is that we give ourselves 30 days to build our new agency web, tablet, and mobile platform. And we broadcast the process live. While agile development has been around for years in the software and product development communities, it's still a relatively new concept to marketing. The fact is that most advertising is still oriented around a "launch and leave it" philosophy. An idea that is contrary to product development best practices. As marketers and agencies get deeper into platform and app development, it's important that our thinking and process shifts. We need to work, get things to market, and learn faster. Do it cheaper, leaner, and more collaboratively. Find ways to operationalize hacking and experimentation. And most importantly, practice what we're preaching. This an attempt at doing just that. Check us out at http://www.deutschinc.com or follow the conversation at #30Days2Beta.

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I watched Davis Guggenheim's new U2 documentary, From the Sky Down, last night on Showtime. Guggenheim brings the band back to Berlin's Hansa Studio where they recorded "Achtung Baby" twenty years ago. They re-imagine and perform some of the songs, talk about the making of the album, and play and react to early demo recordings. In between, Guggenheim weaves in archival footage and animation to help establish and drive the narrative. The production value is strong, and it's an entertaining look inside the band and the making of a tremendous rock record.

But more than being an entertaining rock documentary, it's also a profile in smart business and brand leadership. Going into the 90s, the band's popularity was on the downslide. They had in many ways lost their way. Instead of trying to recreate what they had done before and just trying to make it a little better, they decided on radical change and musical experimentation. Then they worked their assess off. And they kept pushing until the new sound and clothes fit. In essence they laid out a roadmap for creative innovation.

The most transformative and exciting brands today aren't afraid of radical change and experimentation. They hit it head on every single day. It's a core part of the company DNA for brands like Facebook, Google, Netflix, Rovio, and Starbucks, to name a few. They hack their way into long term plans. They tinker and experiment. They get products to market fast, listen, react, adjust, and experiment some more.

For a lot of people this is not a new business leadership insight. But the marketing world is still largely behind. Marketers wants innovation. But they also want campaigns. There's nothing wrong with a smart and strategic marketing campaign. They work. But if we want to get to meaningful innovation we need to look at what we do differently and need to redefine the marketing fundamentals. Consistent and prolific creative experimentation has to become key deliverable. You just don't get to the big new sound without it.

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We host a lot of great speakers at the agency. Technologists, artists, inventors, business leaders, and so on.

In the past we've had folks like Tim Westergren of Pandora, Jimmy Wales from Wikipedia, and John Batelle of Federated Media, to name a few.

We decided that it would probably be a good idea to share the experience with everyone. We're calling it Deutsch Commons Live.

On Thursdays at 4pm PST, we will broadcast live from our commons area with a new guest every week or so. As many as we can fill up.

We'll also be taking some questions from you.

If you can't check it out live, no worries. All shows will be archived. We know its a little late for y'all on the East Coast.

Check back on the site regularly to find out the schedule, and join us today, Thursday, October 13, for Jamie Wilkinson.

Jaime is an Emmy winner and all around one of the best internet minds out there. He's going to talk about mobilizing communities on the web.

Learn more about Jamie here: http://jamiedubs.com/about

Then come back on Thursday, October 20, for Alexis Madrigal.

Alexis is Senior Editor at "The Atlantic" and an award-winning former staff writer for wired.com.

He is all things technology communications and is going to talk about what the world may look like in 2020.

Check it all out here: http://www.livestream.com/deutschla

If you have show inquiries or ideas, you can write me at winston.binch@deutschinc.com or chad@deutschinc.com

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VW just launched the newly redesigned Beetle. It's got some more muscle and a new look.

To help celebrate its return you can "like" it on Facebook and get your pic in Times Square. Simple and fun way to share the love.

http://www.facebook.com/VW

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I spent last week at Advertising Week in New York. It got me to thinking. There's little doubt that agencies and brands need to act more like start-ups (though Tim O'Reilly would probably say more like "crackpots"). You hear it from just about every corner of the industry. It's not a new insight. But still, few ad agencies have made the transition. I don't have all of the answers, but below are some things I'd recommend to any agency looking to move further in this direction.

1. Put it at top and center of your company: Agency cultural change needs to start at the top. It's the best way to kick-start meaningful change. Make sure that you install digital and invention leadership at the very top of your organization. Additionally, make sure the CEO believes in the mission. I've been lucky to have great support from people at the top. It doesn't matter how much smart stuff you've got to say, if the CEO isn't echoing the sentiments and ideas, the ship just won't turn. You also should avoid trying to create groups that sit off to the side of the main flow of your agency. Put invention at center. Appoint some key change agents, specialists, but invite everyone to the party. I was on a mobile panel last week. The notion of creating a separate innovation groups came up. It's not a good idea. If your entire agency is not thinking about mobile now, you're in trouble. Put technology close to the ideas and make digital and invention everybody's job.

2. Hire inventors: Get creative about where you're looking for and finding talent. Portfolio reviews at advertising and design schools are important but look outside of traditional recruiting channels. You need people who make stuff, have modern ideas, know how to sell and code them. People who would instinctively rather be at a start-up, software, or gaming company. Look at those types of companies and places like Boulder Digital Works at CU and VCU Brandcenter, where integrated creative skills are taught. Go to tech conferences. The 4A's CreateTech, led by CP+B's Scott Prindle and Deutsch LA's Trevor O'Brien, is a good new one. Check out what TechStars is up to. While advertising is not always the easiest sell to someone from the start-up world, it's not as hard as you may think. In advertising you get to work on hundreds of products not just one. You get to put ideas out into culture, work with cool brands, invent things, and make a good living in the process. I believe that advertising has a lot to offer the young entrepreneur, and our industry needs more of them if we want to stay relevant.

3. Build it yourself: If you want to create powerful and innovative apps, you need people on staff to make them. Having a strong technology capability enables you to move fast, ensures your ideas are at the forefront of technology, are feasible, and compliant with client IT standards. It doesn't mean that you should never partner with external developers. Many times the best solution comes from beyond agency walls, but I've found it critical to have a strong tech core, internally. Making stuff and tinkering with things is essential to establishing a true culture of invention. If you have to pick up the phone every time you want to make something, its going to be pretty hard to make the transition. Start by hiring a great creative technology director with experience ideally in both ad and start-up worlds (it helps that they understand both ad and tech culture). Then quickly start building things. You need proof points. Many agencies are pretty attached to the idea of doing things with partners. You'll need to prove to your teams that you can match or beat the quality outside. But it needs to be a full agency commitment. You don't get to great tech overnight. Like anything, you get better the more you do it.

4. Create an invention-friendly process: It's pretty easy for people to get a handle on what invention looks like. What's obviously harder is how you get there. We recently did an internal workshop with some of my colleagues, Kip Voytek, Robert Reich, Will Aldrich, where we dived into brand ecosystems and service-based marketing thinking. What became evident is that we needed new tools for both evaluating and getting to good platform ideas. So we decided to make our creative brief more platform-friendly and also develop an idea filtering device that we're calling the Invention Charter. This is a document that gets filled out during the creative development process, and it's focused on getting teams to ask some important questions about the work. What is it in 140 characters? What problem does it solve? Who is it for? How do we find people? Why would someone participate? Why would they share it? Simple stuff but critical things to ask if you want someone to use or watch what you make repeatedly.

5. Make it easy to say yes: Don't present your digital or invention ideas like TV spots. The evaluation criteria is different. If you want to give them a fighting chance, you need to root them in strategy, show how they work, or better yet, prototype them. You also need to explain their role in solving the business objectives. They need to be easy to say yes to. Part of that is making sure that they are technically feasible, but the other part is making sure that green-lighting them is a decision that people are both excited about and can easily justify. They have to make brand and business sense. Be hyper critical of your own creative decisions. Ask yourself some of the questions I've highlighted above before you sell something.

6. Bring your clients along: If you want to sell innovative solutions, it's also vital that you help your clients understand how to evaluate and position them in their marketing plans. We talk a lot about the notion of being idea venture-capitlists. It's not about doing one big idea. It's about doing a lot things, and getting comfortable with the fact that you're going to have some failures. Rovio made fifty-one games before they got to Angry Birds. As good as any development process is or no matter how smart you, you just don't know what exactly is going to resound and connect with people. This is big shift for marketing, and brands need help understanding why its an approach that makes sense for them. You've got to create conditions for invention and a big part of that is having ongoing conversations with your clients about what is and isn't working out there and how marketing invention can best work for their business.

7. De-couple invention from campaign cycles: Ad timelines are notoriously short. And there are generally fundamental needs that have to be met. TV, OOH, display, retail, print, and etc. The innovations are often the first thing to get cut. They don't always fit in the box. They may feel too risky. You should strive to create innovative marketing at each bat. It's what gets talked about and shared. But you also need to think above and beyond campaign cycles. Many true or lasting brand innovations make sense with or without a campaign. They are things that should be done regardless of what's happening on air, particularly if they're solving business challenges. De-coupling invention from campaigns gives you the time to do it right, removes campaign pressures from the process, and ultimately, leads to better and more effective innovation work.

8. Don't leave your inventions at home: You may get an assignment brief that asks for certain media deliverables. You need to meet the initial ask but don't stop there. If a mobile application, a new site or service, is going to answer the business problem, bring it forward. Be an expert. An unbiased problem solver. You do the brand a disservice when you withhold smart thinking. Help people understand why its important to consider options other than the ones they've asked for. If you can do it smartly, respectfully, and on strategy, it generally works out. Many of the digital successes I've been a part of started this way.

9. Make stuff for yourself: Most of us in this business get paid a fee to think and make things for clients. We're in the service business. And to be successful, you've got to provide a high level of service and create work that gets brand and business results. That's job number one. And its a great business to be in. But if you want to get better at invention, you've also got to make things for yourself. It's how you learn, get to bigger thinking, get people excited about making things, as well as open incremental revenue streams. Take a page from Facebook and Google's book. Operationalize and support daily experimentation.

10. Know how the business works: It's not enough to know the brand's marketing challenges. You need to understand the customer experience and how the business and technology works. Lean into infrastructure. Learn all about their POS and CRM systems, how they make money, and get familiar with every single digital and real world customer touchpoint. Then mine for customer needs and problems. You'll find some ideas in there every time.

11. Make invention part of the vision: I watched a great video of Steve Jobs this weekend from his NeXT era. He talked about the importance of "reiterating the vision." If you want to get better at making things, you need to make invention part of your cultural DNA. It needs to be embedded in your agency vision. And it needs to be repeated often. People need to come in to work every day and know what their chasing. The message needs to be clear and simple. But make invention a big part of the vision.

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This is a fantastic video of Steve Jobs from 1986 on entrepreneurship that @kipbot sent me.  There's more than a few business leadership wisdom gems in here, including this one, a personal favorite, "…there's too many people in marketing." He just really is without question one of the greatest inventors the modern world has ever known. Thanks for the inspiration. 

The Entrepreneurs (from all about Steve) by rmoisescot

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A Passat TDI can go 795 miles on a single tank of gas. That's a long time. To help pass it we made a simple free app called Passat Road Rules that features a collection of the world's most beloved road games. You can refresh your memory on classic games or learn new ones and keep score. My family and I used it on our recent drive down to Legoland. Today it's featured on the iTunes store in the "On the Road Apps" section. Check it: http://bit.ly/ram0gO

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It's not a new or earth-shattering insight for parents but having children re-opens your eyes to the world in surprising and refreshing ways. Our kids may be the closet thing we have to a time machine. Today brought me way back, and it reminded me of the importance of play and fun. I saw it in my daughter's eyes, her smile, and heard it in her voice. But I felt it myself and saw it in every other dad's faces. Awesome time. And then there were of course the Legos.

Thanks to Lego for being a kick-ass brand and for creating such a cool family experience. I am a deep cynic when it comes to amusement parks. I get very turned off by crowds, dirty facilities, bad service and marketing. But they do it right. It's not just fun. It's smart fun. Great people, clever engineering and craftsmanship, pretty clean facilities, talented artists, good food, ageless and interactive rides, and relatively, eco-friendly design. They promote creativity and play for just about everyone. They do more than just talk about it. They pay it off through the experience.

Looking forward to another visit in the not so distant future. Next time I bring my parents.

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I like this idea. Get to climaterealityproject.org and donate your tweets or Facebook status for 24 hours of climate reality on September 14.

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