Andy's Road Journal

Andy's Road Journal

Andy Stoll  //  American-based media producer and social entrepreneur digging creativity, the moving image, design, advertising, storytelling, technology, startups, entrepreneurship, food, tech, pop culture, community-building, education and social change.

Road journal /rohd jurnl/ (n): Carried in a back pocket whenever I'm on the road, it's where I scribble notes, collect ideas, write directions, gather things of interest and record little snippets of seemingly unconnected things that may have caught my eye. Read more about me at andystoll.net and more on my travels at noboundaries.org

 
Aug 21 / 6:47am

[bike riding + insanity] Danny Macaskill's Industrial Revolution

by Andy Stoll

Visually one of the most stunning films I've seen in a long time---both for subject matter and visual style!

Very cool (and love the song!)

(via Becky Smith)

 
May 27 / 11:21am

[City Love + Viral Videos + 5,000 People] Grand Rapids Sings Proud

by Andy Stoll

This is going to be a huge viral hit and a big win for the people of Grand Rapids, Michigan (USA).

And frankly its a lot of fun (The explosions on the bridge might be my favorite part.)

The Grand Rapids LipDub Video was filmed May 22nd (and released yesterday), with 5,000 people, and involved a major shutdown of downtown Grand Rapids, which was filled with marching bands, parades, weddings, motorcades, bridges on fire, and helicopter take offs. This video was created as an official response to the Newsweek article calling Grand Rapids a 'dying city.'"

Props to Rob Bliss for putting it together.  This is going to do more for a positive view of Grand Rapids than the millions spent by the city or the convention and visitor's bureau.  The video's been viewed nearly 100,000 times in the first 24 hours.

I just read Peter Kageyama's book For The Love of Cities, got to play with the Dear World/Dear New Orleans from Robert Fogarty, saw We Are Prtlnd and witnessed the explosion of I Live in Omaha from What Cheer, there's lots of city love going around these days!

 
May 25 / 5:58pm

[sports + interactive + feeling] Nike's Free Campaign

by Andy Stoll

I would likely trade a lung to work for Nike's marketing team.... I LOVE the new Nike Free Campaign. 

Check out the site, and make sure to watch the Nike Throwdown commercial (above). 

Great premise, fantastic execution, smart editing and beautiful interactive component.

Makes me want to buy some shoes....

www.nike.com/free

 
Apr 23 / 1:28pm

[The Future + License to Ill] Beastie Boys Release Fight For Your Right [Revisited]

by Andy Stoll

The Beastie Boys just released what may be a new form of music video, and let me just say, it's EPIC (and designed to go hyper-viral).

20+ minutes long, it's a movie, it's a music video, it's a tongue-and-cheek play off their own material, and it features more than two dozen cameos from some of the biggest movie stars out there (not to mention pies). 

I wonder if this is the start of a new genre of narrative music video for the web?  I imagine we'll see some copycats coming out in the near future.  Oh, and it's definitely not safe for work, so if you're easily offended, you better not watch it...but you can't fault them....they're The Beastie Boys...

[And if you want to see how far our society has come in 25 years, watch the source material: Fight For Your Right To Party (1984).]

 
Apr 14 / 8:07am

[education + access + motion graphics] Skillshare Launches

by Andy Stoll

I'm such a sucker for good motion graphics about social causes.  Here's another good one coming from startup Skillshare (which launched their new website today).  Way to go @mikekarnj and team! Way to go Cultivated Word, your work once again hits my best-of-the-best list.

 
Jan 20 / 8:27am

[Quote] Happiness is...

by Andy Stoll

"Happiness is a butterfly which, when pursued is just beyond your grasp... but if you will sit down quietly, may alight upon you."

 

Nathaniel Hawthorne, novelist.


via @TheDailyLove

Filed under  //  happiness   nathaniel hawthorne   quote  
 
Jan 4 / 9:07pm

[History of Print + Popular Words + 1800-2010] Chicken Beats Beef, Playing With Google Ngram

by Andy Stoll

Below are a series of charts generated by Google's Ngram tool, which charts how often select words are used in the history of English-language print (or atleast the part that Google's Book Search has scanned).  There are some interesting trends here on some random topics: In the 20th Century chicken overtook beef in the 1970's, red wine topped white wine in 1980 (though white wine tried to make a comeback during the .com boom) and happiness has been on pretty much a steady decline since 1880.   Got any other interesting graphs of your own?

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Dec 20 / 7:30pm

[Public US Census Data + Pretty] Fascinating Way To See Your Community in a New Way

by Andy Stoll

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Link to The New York Times Mapping America Tool.

The amount of information now publicly available is mind-blowing these days, but I think the part that is life-changing (and I love) is the new creative ways people mine and display the information therefore contained within.  Mark Zuckerberg told us they have a Facebook algorithm that can predict with better than 50% accuracy if two people on Facebook will ever date (and that was 5-years ago when a only a small % of people were on FB), Google changed the world (again) when they made 200 years of book text mine-able and searchable and then this week, The New York Times released a beautiful and fascinating tool that allows us to digest the 2010 US Census data in a way that makes it extremely useful and relevant.  Any community-minded peeps out there will find it pretty cool, and will find a new perspective on the city they live/want to live in.

Props to Matthew Bloch, Shan Carter, Alan McLean at at The New York Times.

Filed under  //  census   community-building   maps   nytimes   social entrepreneur  
 
Dec 18 / 3:03pm

[interactive advertising] 21st Century Advertising 'Literally' Arrives via Moveon.org

by Andy Stoll
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Whoa. WHOA! The future has just arrived (literally and um, literally).  Check out this interactive ad campaign designed by Charged Studios out of Brooklyn for MoveOn.org.  It uses a combination of video, web, photos, content pulled from your Facebook profile and a good dose of sarcasm to create an advertising 'experience' that you won't soon forget.  (more info on the origins here) 

Sorry Old Spice Guy, love ya, but this is my vote for revolutionary ad-campaign-of-2010.

It may take a bit to load (and requires you to give it access to your Facebook account for full effect), but its worth it for the experience.

http://cnnbc.moveon.org/index.html 

(Minority Report here we come....)

Amazing work on so many levels Charged Studios!!

Filed under  //  advertising   interactive   link   media   moveon.org  
 
Nov 22 / 10:49am

[mashup + design + music] Girl Talk Mashups De-constructed In Real Time

by Andy Stoll

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Here's a website of pure design intelligence! Mashupbreakdown.com will show you, in real-time, the mashup breakdown for Girl Talk's latest work.  If I gave out awards for best website designs of the year, this one would make the list.  Simple, useful, practical and fun. Check it out at www.mashupbreakdown.com but be prepared to lose an hour of your day.

Major props to creator @brahn.

(hattip:@nlw)

Filed under  //  girltalk   mashups   musc   web