Wordle is a very cool web tool that helps you map text into clouds (the kind that transform a jumble of words into design patterns, not the kind that hover over the planet and sometimes rain). Pictured here is a wordle map of chapter 2 in my book, Legendary Brands. Word maps using tag clouds can be a very effective way to analyze the emphasis people place on brands and marketing campaigns.

There are many cultural indicators of bad times. Demand for Spam strikes me as one of the most interesting. I’m not sure what I find more shocking — the fact that more people are buying Spam or the fact that the production line turns out 149,500 cans of spam a day. I ate a lot of this stuff growing up. Still, it’s hard to get past the description: “a gelatinous 12-ounce rectangle of spiced ham and pork.” Even for a pig lover like me, that’s hard to swallow.

The (maybe not so) latent nerd in me still gets fired up about NASA and the space program. These photos of a recent Discovery launch are a great insider’s look at how the orbiter is assembled, prepped and launched.

I’m fascinated by the NASA brand. It has such a rich narrative legacy, and yet in recent years, it seems to have lost some of its luster. The agency is still as vibrant and exciting as it was 20 years ago, but the brand system is falling apart. It’s time for some branding.

I’ve been at it again — serving as a pundit for the branding world. This time it was on the subject of the Olympics and sponsorship. After decades of evolution, many brands are still hoping for nirvanna simply by association, but there’s more to leveraging Olympic equity than paying a green’s fee.

No. This is not a tribute to Zsa Zsa Gabor. But close. I went to a club in Manhattan today (which will remain nameless so that I don’t get hate mail) for a four-hour planning meeting. This place, embedded surreptitiously within the streets of America’s cultural capitol, is trapped in the 1950’s. Guests are required to wear proper attire. Men must wear ties (no, really — they will dress you in one, if you’re in a pinch). Jackets are required. If I didn’t know better, I’d swear you were required to be Republican, too. I dodged the question. But I did get into an elevator with a man in a seer sucker suit and saddle bucks. It was awesome! I felt like I walked into a time warp. It was funny … and just a bit terrifying.

I have no other point to this post.

Girl Employed

My daughter is quite good with my iPhone. And a pink backpack. And the hustle and bustle of navigating airports.

Jeanette and I have dropped off the grid and onto Monarch Beach (without kids) for a few days to celebrate our 15th wedding anniversary. Pretty, charming, smart and downright fun, she’s the reason I haven’t taken to living in a cave, writing a manifesto.

We met a few months after I graduated from USC. I was kind of rudderless at the time, not sure what I wanted to do next and not really minding. I planned to check out for a year and took a job as an usher at the Los Angeles Music Center. Jeanette was a senior usher. She was also a friend of a friend. Between working on “her zone” in one of the center’s various houses, or watching her drink coffee late at night in our circle of friends, something about her struck me. (more…)

A band I discovered in Ireland - The Last Shadow Puppets - awesome! Check them out. An interesting collection of rock and I-don’t-know-what. But I can’t stop listening to them. And the album cover! Jeez. I bought the darn thing just because I thought that picture was cool. Good thing the music was, too.

{sitting in the restaurant at the W Seattle}

One of the most annoying laughs I’ve ever heard. Tortoise shell glasses. Slicked back hair. A propensity to repeat what others say … and that laugh. A-heh-HEH-heh. A-heh-HEH-heh. Please kill me now. (more…)

It was only a matter of time before the celebrity wave hit the bartending trade. Even in Los Angeles and Manhattan, few could probably tell you the name of the reigning celebrity mixologist. That hasn’t stopped pop culture cities across the continent from claiming barkeeps who promise the same sheen to drinking that celebrity chefs have cast on big food. There must be a Bravo show in the making (but I haven’t heard of it).

But before we get ahead of ourselves, finding the Tom Colicchio and Gordon Ramsay of the bar, let’s ask for caution. The mixologist drive threatens an American institution. After all, the cocktail largely came of age in the US, beginning with the mint julep in the south and the martini in the north. According to author Andrew Barr, the cocktail emerged because we yanks couldn’t get our hands on decent liquor. Wine and beer didn’t travel so well on cross-Atlantic shipping lanes, and not everyone could drink rum by itself. That led to the creation of punch, a blending of fruit juice and rum that went down the gullet easier than rum alone. In time, we invented the sling (a mixture of rum, water and sugar), and then the cocktail (a sling with the addition of bitters, and often with the freedom of other spirits than rum). The cocktail is our birthright.
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