MIUZU

It’s not what it seems.  I see stories all the time that inspire me to post an entry here. Despite my blog silence here for months, I am constantly moved by things that remind me  that we’re in a world in flux, and that great things are happening.

So…

Have you heard about the homeless man in Beijing who has been seized by popular culture there as a fashion icon?  If you haven’t, then read it here.

Brother Sharp in Beijing

I think the Independent article does a very good job of describing the unlikely fever behind a random photo taken of a vagrant on the street of Beijing.  Basically, this fellow has been recast without the effort of any brand or ad agency. And although he may know about it by now, he wouldn’t have at the inception of this meme.

You gotta admit it – for someone who lives on the street, the guy looks pretty good.  But I extract another message from this phenomenon…

As social media plays an ever-increasing role in determining what we pay attention to, big media and well-financed agencies are steadily being forced aside as arbiters in our consumption of images and ideas.

I’m not one of those that presume “Madison Avenue” is inherently evil.  But I do believe that it is often commissioned by corrupt companies or political groups with innoble intent.  In some cases, consumers have paid a hefty toll – not just in buying poorly-designed or useless goods, but also in believing things that are intrinsically harmful.

In the case of Brother Sharp here, the outcome is innocuous enough.  It may even be beneficial: people are driven to think about the plight of the homeless more than they would normally.  I tend to think that there is more behind it than on top of it:  Power to the People!

Let’s hope the trend continues.

I don’t do a lot of free-association surfing.  But today I followed a link posted by one of my followees on Twitter.  What I landed on was breathtaking.

Today, I saw the future of film (or least what I long for it to be) – where a small creative time with a fantastic story can make something EPIC with a couple of cheap cameras.

Check this out:

If this production doesn’t affect you, check your pulse, ’cause you’re probably dead.

I think the video largely speaks for itself (in few words), but I have to add one thing: Sexy is about so much more than the pursuit of coitus. It’s about mystery, risk, and effort.

Dave

Some time back, I had the extreme pleasure of finding out about this program.  Very simply, it’s a campaign to give new choices to young women in underdeveloped nations.  Instead of being born and raised into a life of abject poverty and servitude, they are able to get an education and a shot at real independance.

It’s a spectacular example of vision, global consciousness, and impactful design.  Take a close look at the profiles of the four women on the website.  You’ll see hope, opportunity and revolution in the stories of these people. I deeply believe that even while powerful forces conspire to keep the existing control infrastructure in place, there is an unstoppable renaissance brewing. It’s opening more doors to those possessing both the ambition and the creativity to reinvent the future.  It’s giving audience to those with the courage to speak up, and with something of value to say.

While the lives addressed directly by Girl Effect are obviously lived far outside of our target market, there is no doubt that the revolution taking shape in many of these underdeveloped nations stands to affect all of us.  Tho profits are still a long way off for MIUZU, I look forward to the day when we can lend a financial hand to Girl Effect.

Dave

I make it a regular practice to scan the latest design magazines.  One of my faves is Wallpaper. I was overjoyed to see the July issue – the front cover of which promised a smorgasbord of tantalizing visuals and compelling content – where sex meets design.

Finding this incredible work in such a mainstream magazine is incredibly inspiring.  The things that Saville and his project partner Nick Knight say about this concept perfectly capture an important precept behind MIUZU. In Nick Knight’s words:

“You’re not just producing objects to be a part of your sex life, you’re actually sexualizing the whole of your environment.”

Some of the furnishings portrayed are quite scandalous.  I’ve held for a long time that fetish is too marginal and intimidating (dare I say unappetizing?) for most people.  That said, in the context of impeccably good taste, it can take on a very different erotic flavour.  Needless to say, I welcome feedback from anyone who cares to comment!

Please do follow the link to SHOWstudio.  The content there is delicious, intelligent, and plentiful.  While you’re at it, look around youtube for Peter Saville interviews.  The guy is a genius, and is notable for some monumental work in graphic design for pop music.  It’s fair to say that most designers worth their weight have been influenced by him.

Bonus points to anyone who knows him and adds some thoughts at the end of this post.  I’ll end it for now, but will most likely come back later to augment this entry.

Fairly regularly, I run into people that struggle in resolving their religious convictions with their sexual urges.  Sometimes, it’s apparent that their choice is to shut down the sexual side of their life.  Or at least to try to – in an effort that rarely proves both healthy and successful.

Having talked to the number of people I have, and having read as much as I have on the topic, I think that the struggle is widespread, deeply entrenched in myth, and so unnecessary.

I’m always refreshed to read stories of hope for the affected masses.  CNN published a piece from OPRAH.COM on this topic yesterday, which can be found here.

Church offers sex education program for adults (from OPRAH.COM)

The story chronicles the initiative of the Unitarian Universalist Association (UUA) and the United Church of Christ (UCC).  The program is aptly named Our Whole Lives (OWL): Sexuality Education for Adults.  The PR director for one of the churches declared: “We see sexuality as a very important part of the human experience that is lifelong.  It is who we are in our core. We feel it has to be integrated into our spirituality because, for us, spirituality is about wholeness.”

Fantastic.

Instigating fear and ignorance in people about sex is a great way to control them, but it does them more harm than good.  It’s good to see churches choosing another path toward serving their congregations.

If you read the whole piece, you’ll see that the content in the course is very smart and sophisticated – not just for those who have been sheltered all their lives.

It’s a great start.  Maybe one day all religions will broadly embrace this approach.

Dave

Company valuations need a new paradigm.  The driving forces of securities investment need reinvention.

In  a brilliant piece in the Financial Post, Roger Martin (Dean of U of Toronto’s biz school) illuminates the hazards implicit in the current market orientation toward expectations rather than results.  Read the article now!  He articulates so well how business stakeholders, almost always equipped with company stock, will favor the growth of shareholder value – sometimes at the expense of the long-term viability of the company.  Part of the reason the economy is in such a pickle is because the perception of future value has fallen so out of touch with real market value…or authentic potential future value.  Either expectations are wildly oversold, or wildly undersold.  And the incentive systems in place reward deceptive practices by those in the best position to influence broad opinion.

In retrospect, there is more to say about the benefits available in a re-orientation as suggested.  Imagine the effect on innovation; the birth and commercialization of new ideas…

Today, the bulk of securities investment is directed toward the upticks and downticks of stable, and generally successful companies – and whose balance sheets are largely unwavering.  The big wins have already been won.  The company is already mainstream.

Yet, there are so many small companies with important ideas and revolutionary commercial propositions that are desperate for capital, and cannot find it.  They possess the greatest real market growth potential.  We’ve all heard the cliches: “imagine if you bought Microsoft in ’84.”

Forgive me my bias – we’re loaded with potential and short on cash.

Now, imagine how innovation would spike and how the competitiveness of the economy would be invigorated, if the influx of investment capital went to the real market growth opportunities.

It would be a very different world.  And a whole lot more exciting.

Dave

In his recent New Yorker article, HOW DAVID BEATS GOLIATH, Malcolm Gladwell has identified the genius in ‘being different.’

In this piece, Gladwell describes the game tactics of an under-skilled girls’ basketball team in Silicon Valley.  They achieved incredible success against ‘superior’ teams by breaking with convention: after losing possession of the ball, instead of retreating back to their end to align and prepare for the other team’s offensive, they stay on the attack in the opposition’s end. This is called a “full court press.”  It can effectively squelch the opposing team’s attempts to setup down-court offensive plays. Although totally legal, it’s not how the game is traditionally played.  And that’s the trick – it throws the opposition off their game.

The article draws a parallel between this unconventional game tactic and the biblical tale of David and Goliath – how a small and poorly furnished warrior defeats a well equipped giant.

You might be wondering, “Dave, there are no giants in the pleasure products industry! How is this story relevant to your business?”  Yes, MIUZU has competitors.  Lots of them.  But the battle is not between us.

We are all in a battle together against something much more monstrous than any one of us.  Our opponent is conventional thought about sex, pleasure, and intimacy.  More specifically, the enemy is fear, ignorance,  and arcane belief.  We must draw our audience into a new conversation – one that is easy and compelling to have, rather than uncomfortable and scary.

Read our “About Us” page, and this should make more sense…

Dave

Many artists brandish a lens (or a brush)  to capture  the beauty of the world around us.  Art that simply indulges in beauty can be like candy: the effect is very temporary. It washes over us and is gone.

But…. sometimes that art is powerful, permanently affecting our state of mind and view of the world around us.

Last night I had the privilege of seeing the work of an artist with that special power… Chris Jordanobserves mundane objects from contemporary life in a stunningly rich and beautiful manner. At a distance, it’s gorgeous.  Close up, it’s frightening.  Chris shows how little things in large numbers become very very big and very very important. The net impact gives meaning to a specific number (connected to that object), that otherwise would be almost meaningless.

How many tuna do we harvest?

20,500 tuna every 15 minutes

How many plastic cups do we use and trash on airplanes?

How many sharks are killed and pillaged for their fins?

270,000 sharks every day

How much oil are we consuming?

To hear the artist talk about his passion, check out his presentation at TED.

Chris’ work has enlightened me.  I hope you see and enjoy a similar effect…

Dave

Read this entry:

Huffington Post

It describes the drama unfolding between a small Christian church and some of the people at the school that houses the church.  Apparently the church is promoting healthy sex for its constituents.  Instead of the common threats of “eternal damnation for those who don’t repent”, they are offering a solution to a challenge plaguing a great many married Americans: a drab or non-existant sex life.  They are making their appeal public, and that seems to be causing the backlash.

This story captures the angst behind one of humanity’s most beloved and feared pastimes. Sex is ok, as long as we don’t talk about it.  Especially in front of the kids.

I will challenge the naysayers with a counterpoint:  perhaps sex is NOT ok because we don’t talk about it…especially in front of the kids.  After all, we all were kids once.
Dave

Today I read George Will’s column on Chron.com.  I just had to respond.  I’ve recycled my comment here on this blog…

Let me first say that I’m busy enough with my life that I don’t take the time to research the science behind this debate enough to know FOR SURE who is right.  So I’m left to choose a course of (in)action for myself based on the assertions of others.

Who am I to believe?

Do I trust the “eco-pessimists”?
or…
Do I trust the “eco-optimists”?

I so badly want the optimists to be right. If they are, then I can continue to live my life largely as I have been doing.  No need to be distracted by a change in lifestyle and priorities.

I want the pessimists to be wrong.  Their assertions mean I must embrace uncomfortable lifestyle changes.

Alas… this is a good reason to distrust other optimists.  As humans, we defend our current position and invested interests.  Companies do this too.  Consider the tobacco companies and their efforts to stifle the truth about the effects of smoking. Similarly, there is most surely alot of corporate capital dedicated to “protecting” corporate income streams from the spectre of global warming.

At the same time, what interest do the pessimists have in being right?  I don’t see big payoffs. They might enjoy some psychological satisfaction in being righteous, but I believe that motive is shared by both sides, negating any weighting to or fro.  I doubt there’s a lot of corporate power available to defend the pessimists side – there is no long history of corporate profits and therefore a relatively small capital pool to fund propaganda.

Who sits in the pessimist camp?  It seems to include the world’s most respected scientists. As I look around my wide social network, the pessimists tend to be the smartest ones, or the ones that are able to commit a lot of time to consuming information on the subject.  The figurehead was Al Gore, whose only major flaws seemed to be his weight, speaking ability, and political savvy.

Who sits in the optimist camp?  They seem to be rare among the intelligencia.  For awhile there, the figureheads were Dick Cheney and George W Bush. I certainly lost any faith in their good judgement.

So…

By knowing a little about human/corporate nature, and Without knowing a thing about science, there is very good reason to doubt the optimists.

But what about outcomes?

If we all follow the eco-pessimists (zero-impact practices?), then…
If they’re right, we save ourselves from doom.
If they`re wrong, my great-grandchildren get to live an Eden of sorts. Lots of trees, clean water, clean air and other utopian features. That sounds pretty good!

If we all follow the eco-optimists, then…
If they`re right, we get status quo.  Maybe a bit boring, but good for my comforts!
If they`re wrong, then we are doomed.

Seems like we`re better to throw in with the eco-pessimists, in spite of the short term discomforts.

Anyone disagree with my logic here? If so, please explain!