“If you don’t like change, you’re going to like irrelevance even less.” – General Eric Shinseki, U.S. Army Chief of Staff (retired)

We were discussing the concept of relevance at the long table (we love the long table) and David said, “What’s exciting to me is that companies will not rush to create products or services, but that in order to stay relevant they will have to rethink how they do business.”

Is it a matter of right or wrong? Best or worst? Success or failure? Or is it a matter of how relevant you are? The times are changing. Culture is changing. The world is changing.

Are you relevant in this sea change?

p.s. We’ll be talking about relevance, along with a whole slew of other stuff at the first Substance Summit. Wednesday, July 9th 3:30 pm - 5:00 pm at the Lucky Lab NW Beer Hall (1945 NW Quimby). RSVP to “summit <at> findsubstance.com” or join us on the Upcoming Event page or Facebook Event page.

Week 17 had Logobama.com breaking the 10,000 mark for Logobamas created, probably helped by some link love from Airbag Industries. And here’s the 10,000th one (really! not like the 5,000th one…)

10,000 Logobamas… that’s like over $10,000 in theoretical, web-based dollars. Somehow donations have not matched up (though there was $35 in donations this week), at least according to the charts and graphs. And charts and graphs never lie. Ever.

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Visitors per Week / Logobamas Created per Week

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Percent of Visitors Creating a Logobama per Week

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Total Donations and Donations Week by Week

“Do not covet your ideas. Give away everything you know, and more will come back to you.” - Paul Arden (thanks to @swestbrook for the quote)

What?
The first in a series of conversations with the Portland creative community to help each other understand how we can be more inclusive, collaborative and effective. We have been inspired by Portland’s creative technology community (Legion of Tech and Silicon Florist to name a few) to help facilitate an environment where we share ideas and create a place that draws the best talent and the best clients to Portland to get the best creative work possible.

This is the first of many conversations. We don’t expect to solve the world’s problems, let alone ours, over one beer (or two, or three…). But if we’re going to start, it might as well be here and now.

Why?
Because there has to be a better way. There is so much creative talent here in Portland; let’s find a way to nurture and grow our community. More importantly, let’s find a way to make this a place where the best work gets done, made by the best people, and make our community a model for others. And let’s do it for free. There’s no reason you should need to pay membership dues or event fees in order to learn and share with your peers and friends in the community.

Who?
You. If you’re involved in design, technology, both, or neither, and you’re interested in the direction of Portland’s creative community, and you’re willing to participate in the conversation, you must be here.

Where and When?
Wednesday, July 9th 3:30 pm - 5:00 pm
Place: The Lucky Lab in NW, 1945 NW Quimby
Please RSVP to “summit <at> findsubstance.com” or join us on the Upcoming Event page or Facebook Event page so we have an idea of who’s coming.

If you can’t make it, don’t worry. This is just the first of many conversations. Just so you know…

Obama announced last Thursday that he would be forgoing public financing of his campaign. This means his presidential campaign will be funded through sites like Logobama.com. So far that’s resulted in a $5 uptick since last week (compared to the $500+ a friend raised during a 2 hour Obama bake sale… admittedly, the bake sale was much tastier than Logobama). The floodgates are open…

I thought we were going to break 10,000 Logobamas this week, but we ended up just shy at 9,940. Will have to wait until next week for that, but for now: charts and graphs.
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Visitors per Week / Logobamas Created per Week

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Percent of Visitors Creating a Logobama per Week

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Total Donations and Donations Week by Week

“It is not a matter of business as usual, it is a matter of total innovation in business models, in operations, in marketing too. Total innovation tends to go one of two ways: ignominious failure or drastic success.” – from The Green Marketing Manifesto, by John Grant (p. 49)

I recently finished reading The Green Marketing Manifesto by John Grant. Important reading for anyone involved in marketing, advertising, and those who would like the earth to be around for their children. The Green Marketing Manifesto explains the concept that in order to make a difference, climate change requires culture change. At the core of the book, the idea is how successful brands (green or otherwise) need to be deed brands, not brands who simply use marketing and advertising without backing up their actions. It’s not talking, but walking the talk.

But in order to create deed brands, companies need to embrace the idea of culture change. You don’t just decide to be a deed brand. It requires fundamentally different ways of doing business, different ways of having conversations, and different ways of sharing information. And this requires brands to change their business culture. It’s not relying on the dogma of the way it’s always been done, but the concept of constantly striving to do better. It’s the idea of the Results Only Work Environment. It’s believing in the value of the long table and campfire instead of departments and job titles. A culture that believes in this change – in doing great deeds, in converting thinking and talking into action – is a culture goes beyond the green movement. It applies to every movement.

“It’s a huge challenge, but actually isn’t it the huge challenges which give life meaning?” – from The Green Marketing Manifesto, by John Grant (p. 291)

Culture change is obviously an enormous challenge. But culture change is necessary to change the world. Let’s give life meaning.

Haven’t gotten the official word on this, but according to Likemind.us, there’s coffee with Likemind this Friday, June 20th. And since I don’t need to drop anyone off at school, I think I’ll be able to make it to this one!

The Details:
Coffee with Likemind
Friday, June 20th at 8am
Stumptown Downtown / 128 SW 3rd

Hope to see you there.

For the past fifteen weeks, we’ve been gathering data, crunching numbers, and trying to get an understanding of what makes Logobama.com tick. And every week, it’s our duty to provide this information to you. Nineteen weeks until the general election, we’ve got over 30,000 visitors and over 9,350 Logobamas created. See more charts below (we know you love charts).
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Visitors per Week / Logobamas Created per Week

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Percent of Visitors Creating a Logobama per Week

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Total Donations and Donations Week by Week

“Hacking means taking things that suck and making them better.” – Umair Haque

From Harvard Business Press blog writer Umair Haque: http://discussionleader.hbsp.com/haque/2008/05/last_week_i_asked_how.html

There are plenty of things that suck out there. So to continue with the lesson on education, standardized testing doesn’t allow for hacks. Yet hacks are some of the most useful methods for taking standardized items and putting them to better use. Hacks, after all, are the basis for mashups – the gestalt of taking multiple pieces and making the sum more powerful, useful and/or interesting. And it goes beyond software… Parent hacks, Ikea hacks, Bike hacks, , or cover your entire existence with Life Hacks.

As Umair’s column states, “Hackers play. Hackers don’t spend huge amounts of time learning in a structured way. The bigger the problem you’re focusing on, the more you’ll likely need to play to solve it. Big problems aren’t solved overnight, and they often can’t be solved in a tightly structured way. Hacking goes (way) beyond the limits of structured, rigid thinking.”

Hacking also allows for failure. It allows us to fail repeatedly, yet fail forward. Our hack failures get us closer to our goals. Why is hacking and failure important? Despite these ideas not being part of our education, they absolutely help us learn.

Without hacks, we wouldn’t have things like this:

(Big Ideas (don’t get any) from James Houston on Vimeo. More about this video at Creative Review.)

The other day I overheard Shaun talking about a map API he was working with… he said, “well, I couldn’t get it to work with the documentation, so I built a hack to get around the issues I was having. Now it works great!” And that’s the point. Documentation tells how to implement something, but it doesn’t consider why you’re implementing it. Hacks are born to answer the question “why.”

The first Substance Rolling Coffee took place on Friday, June 6th. It was kind of cold, kind of rainy, but many people braved the weather for some awesome eastside Voodoo Doughnut action. Well, four people actually biked (David, Stacy, Paul, and myself), but everyone was welcome. (You can identify everyone in the photo above here, and follow all of them on Twitter, if you so desire).

The doughnuts were delicious as expected, the coffee was warm and friendly, and the jukebox was packed with rockin’ tunes. The biking was an added bonus, as I now realize how close our office is to Voodoo Too (less than a 10 minute bike ride). You can see the full Flickr gallery from the event here:

http://flickr.com/photos/findsubstance/sets/72157605465535776/

Next time, you definitely need to join us. Tex-ass doughnuts all around!

p.s. Huge thanks to Lynn for buying the doughnuts! You rock, as always.

So Barack Obama has secured the nomination to be the presidential candidate for the Democrats. We’re sure Logobama.com had something to do with this. And as Obama moves into general election mode, Logobama.com will remain open until November. This gives us about five months to reach the $5,000 donation goal.

As promised last week, here’s a look back at the highlights over the past fourteen weeks of Logobama.com, along with graphs and charts. This data is from over 29,000 visitors and 8,900+ Logobamas created. (Please contain your excitement for charts.)

Top Ten Sites Referring the Most Traffic to Logobama.com
1. The Generator Blog (http://generatorblog.blogspot.com/)
2. NotCot (http://www.notcot.org/)
3. Politico (http://www.politico.com/)
4. Michelle Malkin (http://michellemalkin.com/)
5. Illseed (http://illseed.wordpress.com/)
6. Mashup Awards (http://mashupawards.com/)
7. Democratic Underground (http://www.democraticunderground.com/)
8. Mashable (http://mashable.com/)
9. Reddit (http://www.reddit.com/)
10. Obama Media (http://obamamedia.wordpress.com/)

Top Five Search Terms Resulting in Traffic to Logobama.com
1. Obama logo (#3 in Google results, a hair behind www.barackobama.com. That’s how our SEO strategy rolls…)
2. logobama (#1 in Google results, with #3 being the Flickr gallery… all about extending digital brands to multiple places.)
3. Barack Obama logo
4. logo creator
5. Obama logos

Top Five States Visiting Logobama.com
1. California
2. New York
3. Illinois
4. Texas
5. Oregon

Web Browsers of Visitors to Logobama.com
Firefox: 49% / Internet Explorer: 37% / Safari: 11% / Other: 3%

Most Viewed Logobamas on Flickr
1. Logobama #3522

2. Logobama #1384

3. Logobama #5880

And now… the graphs.
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Visitors per Week / Logobamas Created per Week

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Percent of Visitors Creating a Logobama per Week

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Total Donations and Donations Week by Week