Just another day

It’s friday afternoon and I just gotta get this out of my head. Have you ever wondered why you enjoy having a cup of coffee?

Don’t know about you, but many times a day I just feel I gotta get a cup of coffee. The same feeling occurs on a thursday and friday afternoon, but this time it’s a beer that signals the neurons in my brain. 

Basically what happens is your brain probably signals that it wants you to relax and the answer is a cup of coffee (or tea or smoothies) since thats what you usually do when you relax in the middle of the day at work. A strong association. It’s funny cause I remember my first Beer or my first cup of Coffee, and the experience wasn’t a nice one. Instead it was rather disgusting. They both tasted like shit.

This is what we gotta do when we create communication. We have to associate things people don’t necessary like with something they do like. This way we’ll move those associations onto the brand/product/object that we market. 

I’ve taken part in creating many Flash sites, but have always tried to make sure people don’t have to wait for the experience. Today, many price winners on competitions like Cannes Lions take forever to load. So, when you are part of the jury, the agencies instead post a video that showcases the campaigns. This way agencies make sure that judges in Cannes, Clio, Epica, Eurobest, NYF, LIA, DA&D and others don’t have to wait for that super duper flash site to load. Basically, the experience is totally overlooked.

So, do you think you would enjoy that Espresso of yours if it involved a wait that was measured in % and took 2 minutes one time and 4 the next and then 3.

The other day I had to switch phone numbers since I got myself an iPhone 3G. The new number is +46 70 654 90 10.

The fact that this post will be picked up by LinkedIn, Plaxo, Friendfeed, Twingly, Facebook, Jaiku, Tumblr and probably another 20 different social networking services connected to my RSS feed makes me hope that people actually will write down my new phone number.

Why don’t you call if you have something fun to speak about.

I was reading Mashable about Michael Phelps having one million Facebook fans dressed up with a Sports Illustrated cover with the 8 gold medalist on it. I’m really sorry for my blunt humor. But I could not resist retouching Mr Phelps a little bit.

A psychologist would probably say I was stressed due to the fact that Sweden has totally failed in the Olympics this year. I say, I’m just having fun.

Ms Swissmiss found a pretty good answer to that question on Frank Chimero’s, designer, illustrator and tinkerer from Missouri, USA, website.

It’s Saturday and I’m in front of the computer, working and watching Tennis on SVT Live Play. On top of that I’m reading some blogs in my Netvibes account. Found a nice little article on Wired that is worth taking a look at.

Per Robert Öhlin - Mine Goes to Eleven was sent on a mission by Judith - En timme om dagen. And now I feel obligated to pass along the torch.

The mission is basic and simple. I was picked as one of Per’s favorite blogs. And therefore I should tell the world about my 7 favorite reads. So here we go. (oh, before we start, Mine goes to eleven is one of them, but I’ll list another 7.)

I basically start everyday with logging into my Netvibes account. I read about 70 feeds a day to keep myself updated on everything that has something to do with innovation, digital communication, social marketing, typography, design, inventions, research, datamining, softwares etc etc etc.

But if I’m stressed for time. These 7 blogs would never escape my eye.

ReadWriteWeb - It’s The ONE source if you wanna keep track of what’s up in the digital world.

SwissMiss - Tina Roth Eisenberg from the beautiful little country in the Alps delivers insights into the world of design and creativity

FFFFound - I like images. They start things up in my head.

ILoveTypography - That pretty much says it.

Weconverse - Mostly in Swedish, but a great read. Mr Gatarski also likes to debate. Good.

Techcrunch - “Currently tracking 112.8 million blogs and over 250 million pieces of tagged social media.”

MindPark - Initally when launched It wasn’t one of my favorites. But today the blog contains great posts often with a thought through analysis.

I picked a couple of large ones, so I don’t expect that many torches to be passed along now. But they’re all great reads.

ps. If you like Whisky, my blog WhiskyGrotto.com should probably be in the list.

It’s a quite impressive number. 8,002,530 people all over the world helped Mozilla in setting the Guinness World Record that they officially achieved the record for the “largest number of software downloads in 24 hours”. 

Firefox now has over 180 million users in more than 230 countries! Congratulations from one of your users.

(PR tip - of course, when they make an image for people to download it’s sized for blogs, not newspapers)

Read on Last100 that Nokia announced that they will buy Symbian.

That’s all I have to say about that.

Today it’s Midsummer evé in Sweden. This means all Swedes go to the country side, collect flowers all day and drink all night. To round it up we all end up in the grass with someone and make love until the morning comes.

Eh, or as Wikipedia explains it:

Midsummer may simply refer to the period of time centered upon the summer solstice, but more often refers to specific European celebrations that accompany the actual solstice, or that take place 24 June and the preceding evening. European midsummer-related holidays, traditions and celebrations, which are pre-Christian in origin and have been tried to be Christianised as celebrations of the Nativity of St. John the Baptist as “Saint John’s Day” festivals, are particularly important in Northern Europe.

Anyway. Happy Midsummer to all of you! I’m of to the country side and I’ll collec….eh…sorry.

(I’m also of to vacation, meaning there might be fewer blog posts the next couple of weeks)

We talk a lot about how logotypes, advertising, products, packaging, tone of voice, TV commercials, websites etc etc etc communicates the brand. But usually, the more business-oriented the purpose, the stiffer the creative executions. That’s why I just love to see infographics like these.

How would the infographics look in your annual report next time if you were true to your brand?

As usually when you find something nice and it’s an image, you find it at FFFFound.

I pointed my browser towards Twingly when I landed on an Error 500: Internal server error page. Once there I was greeted by this beautiful error message.

It’s funny how a little bit of humor makes you wanna come back…even though the service actually didn’t work. This is something many of the old companies definitely can learn from.

ps. What the heck does “G” stand for? Google?