Digital Bowerbird
Digital Bowerbird is a collection of content about media, digital life vs. analogue life, urban design, pop culture, people, design, photography, advertising, books, travel, fashion and things for the home.
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Any views expressed on this blog are my own, often said with an ironic slant and mostly excerpts filtered from things I find online. They do not reflect the views of my employer or clients.
Holiday Typography
Beautiful stone worn away by the ocean, South Coogee
Old fuel station somewhere between Newcastle and Lake Macquarie.
Summer holidays have come to a close and it is time to return to work. Slowly sorting through holiday snaps and the one thing I kept seeing throughout our travels were hydrangeas. I was increasingly fascinated by capturing them against various “urban” backdrops - bricks, houses and more. Here are a few of the ones I photographed.
With a little less than 10 hours left of 2011, it is hard to believe 12 months have passed us by. A few lessons from the year that was:
- Don’t f*@k with Mother Nature - January saw Brisbane flood and much of Queensland experience some level of flooding. In the case of my hometown people experienced an inland tsunami that devastated (that’s putting it mildly) whole communities. That was just the beginning for what would be Mother Nature’s ravage on the world in the first half of 2011. The lesson: we (humans) are truly insignificant in the grand scheme of things.
- The worst case scenario can brings out the best in people - The community spirit following the floods was awesome in the truest sense of the word. I remember volunteering at Mt Coot-tha, organising volunteers, and seeing kids about 11 or 12 wanting to help in the clean up but being turned away as they didn’t have parental consent. To see everyone working together to help friends, family and strangers was uplifting and helping clean up was more rewarding than any days work spent at the office.
- When your Mother says, “You’ll find it/him/something when you least expect it” - She’s actually right. You’ll of course spend years shrugging that cliche off, scoffing everytime your mother tells you. When you least expect it and when you stop looking, things seem to just fall into place.
Of course things year presented a lot more lessons like learning to “go with the flow”, trust your instincts, challenge yourself and while 2012 will undoubtedly present a lot more challenges, for the first time in a long time, I’m ready for it.
Wherever you are this New Year’s Eve and whoever you are with I wish you a safe, prosperous and joyful New Year!
This is the thing: When you hit 28 or 30, everything begins to divide. You can see very clearly two kinds of people. On one side, people who have used their 20s to learn and grow, to find … themselves and their dreams, people who know what works and what doesn’t, who have pushed through to become real live adults. Then there’s the other kind, who are hanging onto college, or high school even, with all their might. They’ve stayed in jobs they hate, because they’re too scared to get another one. They’ve stayed with men or women who are good but not great, because they don’t want to be lonely. … they mean to develop intimate friendships, they mean to stop drinking like life is one big frat party. But they don’t do those things, so they live in an extended adolescence, no closer to adulthood than when they graduated.
Don’t be like that. Don’t get stuck. Move, travel, take a class, take a risk. There is a season for wildness and a season for settledness, and this is neither. This season is about becoming. Don’t lose yourself at happy hour, but don’t lose yourself on the corporate ladder either. Stop every once in a while and go out to coffee or climb in bed with your journal.
Ask yourself some good questions like: “Am I proud of the life I’m living? What have I tried this month? … Do the people I’m spending time with give me life, or make me feel small? Is there any brokenness in my life that’s keeping me from moving forward?”
Now is your time. Walk closely with people you love, and with people who believe … life is a grand adventure. Don’t get stuck in the past, and don’t try to fast-forward yourself into a future you haven’t yet earned. Give today all the love and intensity and courage you can, and keep traveling honestly along life’s path.
It is Christmas Eve here and as tomorrow will be spent with those near and dear here is to a happy festivus, fellow Tumblrs!
I was first introduced to Amanda Mooney through her blog, We Are the Digital Kids. In the time that I have followed her, Amanda has gone from working with Edelman Chicago (including co-founding Edelman’s global millennial agency 8095) to now working in Shanghai, China managing Eldeman’s digital team. Her insight, understanding and natural submersion in digital life is inspiring and I have no doubt she is a face to watch.
The following video is from her talk at the 2011 PICNIC Festival where she talked about how brands mobilise and engage, and how the evolving dynamics of trust influences strategy. Amanda steps through how to evolve a brand to be a catalyst instead of a traditional marketer.
Amanda Mooney on Trust me and I’ll Trust You / PICNIC Festival 2011 from PICNIC on Vimeo.
You can check out other videos from PICNIC here.
*This first appeared on BrioDaily
