When Levi Felix left Global Natives to found Digital Detox with Brooke Dean, we couldn't have been more excited for them to follow their passions and lay the foundation for a global movement of mindfulness. Levi's unique ability to capture our collective consciousness and simultaneously tap into the cultural zeitgeist in ways that challenge us to be mindful and better people, to ourselves and others, is truly remarkable.
They've gone from strength to strength these past years, leading and harnessing a growing global conversation on the role that technology plays in our lives, with press hits from most every major publication in the US and beyond, and a loyal, dedicated, and growing following of intentional people, cutting across every single demographic, who come together to have fun, play, be mindful, and act intentionally.
Daniel had the pleasure of attending Camp Grounded, Digital Detox's reinvention of classic summer camp at its finest, recently in the redwood forest of northern California, and had an absolute blast seeing Levi and Brooke's vision come to life in the most magical of settings. Levi and his team did an incredible job creating an environment of trust and exploration, one in which talking of work was forbidden, use of a fake (and fun) camp name was mandatory, and every activity is designed to help better connect you with you and those around you.
Forbes Magazine covered the camp, and put together a video introduction to it, featuring both Levi and Daniel, fake camp names and all!
XPRIZE's Visioneering: Solving the World's Grand Challenges
As Daniel spoke about in his recent TEDx talk, it takes a wide variety of stakeholders and resources to solve major problems, and there may be no better, more influential, or ultimately as effective example of this in existence today than the XPRIZE Foundation.
The XPRIZE is a non-profit founded by a collective of tech visionaries committed to solving the world's grand challenges by incentivizing teams to do what previously would have been considered impossible. Their track record thus far speaks for itself many times over, with innovative market driven solutions to problems ranging from commercial spaceflight to cleaning up oil spills.
The traditional XPRIZE pipeline for identifying the world's grand challenges needing and able to be solved via a prize is XPRIZE's annual Visioneering event for its trustees.
Daniel had the honor and privilege to join, according to Time Magazine, "some of the smartest and most influential people in the world," to brainstorm radical approaches to some of the grandest challenges humanity faces at this year's Visioneering, held weekend at an LA resort, and was absolutely blown away over the enthusiasm, commitment, and purity of purpose from all who were there.
Solving the world's grandest challenges isn't easy, but clearly XPRIZE is onto something!
Above: Paul Romer, Economist, Policy Entrepreneur, and Global Natives client leading the Future of Cities session at visioneering. Photo credit: Bill Gross
Photo Credit: The Riot House
A few insightful looks at the event from other participants:
The powerful role of incentive competitions to spur innovation, Washington Post
Thinking Big Is The Easy Part: My Weekend Dreaming Up The Next XPrize, Fast Company
How I Almost Got to Decide the Next XPRIZE, Time Magazine
Why Everyone Should Think Like an Activist: Daniel @ TEDxHolborn
Daniel recently spoke at a TEDx event in London, giving a talk titled: Why Everyone Should Think Like an Activist.
Official talk blurb:
"All of a sudden, activists are everywhere; they're in the media, they're using Twitter, they're toppling governments! Daniel's talk will cut through the hype, and focus on what defines activist thinking, and how we all can and should think like activists in our everyday lives."
Daniel gave the talk after realizing just how much the perception of activism has changed in the mainstream in the past few years. It wasn’t that long ago that activists and their activism were anything but cool and mainstream, instead they were almost universally derided by the press and establishment. They weren’t taken seriously, and were mostly viewed as marginal players representing fringe groups that don’t have the muscle to mandate being listened to.
But now, things have changed, things are different. Daniel's mom knows who Malala is, his postman was mesmerized by Tahrir Square, and the response to Trayvon Martin’s killing made waves around the world. It's been surprising these past few years, to see that all of a sudden, activists are everywhere, activists are celebrated, activists are… cool.
Tailored to TED's broad audience, Daniel distilled his learnings from applying activist thinking, gained from years as an activist on a wide variety of issues, to pursuits global and local, personal and professional. The work that Global Natives does is largely rooted in this activist thinking, and so the talk provides a framework for effecting change on almost any issue, no matter how big or small, using activist thinking.
While it's questionable if anyone laughed at his opening joke, we'd like to think that there's something for most anyone in this speech. After all, we're all trying to effect change in our own lives, and activist thinking provides a framework for doing so.
On the heels of several fun, innovative, and effective storytelling projects for clients, Daniel was featured in the Innovators in Video series from Visible Measures. In the interview Daniel shares his views on what makes for great storytelling, why you don't need huge budgets to make great content, and more.
You can see the original post here.
Note: Daniel is now reconsidering the frequency of his winter holidays given his glow in the dark complexion in the video.
As someone who spends significant time going back and forth between London and New York each month (and has been doing so for years now), Daniel is a big fan of the 3460 publication and community.
It's name is the number of miles separating the two cities, and it "aims to digitally and physically connect creative and passionate individuals who live, work and travel between NYC and London. The bi-weekly newsletter features the top tech, design and social good startups from New York and London, as well interviews, event listings and relevant news."
The most recent edition features an interview with Daniel covering everything from his favorite secret spots in each city to what's currently on his playlist.
From Product Design to Video Production: Our Collaboration with Retail Startup BouxTie
At the end of 2012 I gave a speech on entrepreneurship to a room full of some of the UK's finest entrepreneurs in Bloomberg's HQ at the request of UKTI's entrepreneurship initiative. That evening I had the pleasure of meeting Renato Libric, a successful real estate entrepreneur who had developed a cutting edge piece of technology, enabling anyone, anywhere to give a gift card to anyone, anywhere regardless of currency or location, and all this securely. This was a major advance for retail technology, and Renato knew it!
Renato ended up engaging Global Natives to help him ditch his original product and re-imagine it from the ground up, and for the past year we've been working with Renato and his team to define his company, BouxTie. As a result of our process, we designed a product (including the complete UX and branding) that made good on the technology's promise while exploiting several major holes in the consumer market that we identified, the biggest of which was the ability to make a gift card thoughtful.
After BouxTie's engineers built the app almost exactly as we had designed, we had the pleasure of helping them evaluate potential launch demographics and target communities, as well as produce an advertisement. The ad was designed to target American college students, and rather than yet another app how-to video, we showed what the app can do in a rather illustrative if playful way (warning: the production involved renting the stickiest, cheesiest, most stereotypical frat house on UC Berkley's campus, and referencing almost every college party stereotype possible in a 60 second spot!).
Designing the product from the ground up gave us the ability to really shine as communicators who conceptualize our work based on the understanding that every interaction is an opportunity for engagement. This work took advantage of our deep comms and tech experience, and we had a blast defining a new mobile retail experience throughout.
BouxTie will soon launch their beta app in partnership with some of the world's largest retailers, and we couldn't be happier for Renato and his team.
Special thanks to Collaborative Method, our production partners on the ad.
It's been quite a year for you, for us, for everyone. But worry not, this isn't a holiday post showing off our snazzy accomplishments. Rather, a note from:
...to let you know that we're thinking of you. Whether we've worked together or played together (hopefully both) in all the glory that was 2013, we hope you've been having fun, and that we contributed to it in some way.
Perhaps we helped you see an old challenge as a new opportunity.
Or helped you just go for it, and be disruptive.
Or maybe we didn't help you at all, and instead, just admired your amazingness.
Or perhaps you had our back through the good and challenging times, like true friends do.
No matter, we hope that you know we are here for you, and that 2014 is a year play,
and endless...
...possibilities everywhere.
We hope that you take a moment now and then to take a step back from the rush...
...to enjoy quiet reflective moments with those you love.
On Set with The Urbanization Project: Colombia Edition
Continuing our comprehensive public engagement and storytelling work with NYU Stern's Urbanization Project (see earlier posts here and here), we were thrilled to accompany their Urban Expansion team to Colombia last week to document the work of Valledupar's visionary mayor, Fredys Miguel Socarras Reales, as he make's room for his city's rapid expansion.
Politicians aren't traditionally incentivized or rewarded for long term planning, which makes this effort all the more compelling, as he's working to benefit future generations of Valleduparians. Simply put, we need to make positive examples of visionary public officials and policy makers if we're to witness and benefit from fundamental change in our world, and we were honored to help make this happen in Colombia.
Crafting a visually compelling story about a city planning for its expansion (as opposed to implementing its expansion plans- think road graders and construction workers) was a challenge we were eager to take on, as this sort of intellectual storytelling is quickly becoming some of our favorite work. This is the type of story that, while not always the sexiest, needs to be told, and we are in an excellent position to provide end to end production services, from concept and treatment ll the way through post-production. It takes an organization like NYU Stern's Urbanization Project to recognize and fund such work, and we're thrilled to work with them to further their efforts.
For more background on the Urban Expansion Initiative's making room paradigm, we'd recommend this introductory video that we made earlier this year. In short, cities cities can and should make room for orderly expansion, because it'll ensure that they remain inclusive, equitable, and affordable for their residents as they rapidly expand.
A big, big thank you goes out to our amazing production partners, including our Director of Photography: Dave Anderson, and production all stars: Mono Films.
Urbanization Project: New, Improved, and Easy to Understand
When we began working with Paul Romer and The Urbanization Project over a year ago, we we were charged with identifying and executing the most effective way(s) to communicate their game changing, yet nuanced ideas and work, from inside the halls of power, to the public squares beyond as they work to empower visionary prime ministers, mayors, and policy makers around the world.
Considering that 5 billion people will move into cities before this century is over, this moment in time represents a once in a species opportunity to speed up progress and dramatically improve the lives of generations to come. As a result, UP's work is consequential, timely, and complex, and we've been hard at work helping them make it accessible.
Today, we're so pleased to share the results of that work as UP's new website launches, complete with 17 videos we produced for them, leveraging our initial strategy work, and expressing it via web and video for a global audience to interact with.
The core of our approach to any big idea is the same: simplify without making simplistic, and we are proud of how succinctly UP is now able to introduce itself, via it's new website:
...and introductory video:
...and Charter Cities video:
Every piece of B-Roll was chosen specifically to illustrate a point, with the idea of not including anything gratuitous or flashy (simply not on brand for UP). So, if a piece of footage or soundbite didn't advance the narrative, it was left on the cutting room floor, resulting in precise videos with equally precise narratives and footage. Not the most exciting or fast paced videos we've ever produced, but certainly the most exacting when it comes to cramming in an incredible amount of specific information into a short period of time, without overwhelming the viewer.
A great comparison to see the evolution in messaging is between Paul's first TED talk and the Charter Cities video above.
In addition, given their global audience, the core videos can be viewed with subtitles in 6 languages, powered by dotsub's technology platform.
With the website, we had the opportunity to create an entirely new and sticky content ecosystem, with strategically integrated video content (i.e.: video FAQs as content deep dives), horizontal and vertical content navigation, and purposefully curated and featured content types. All of this was done to seamlessly emphasize the inter-connectivity of the work and content of UP's individual initiatives, so as to promote their holistic and markedly unique approach to urbanization.
The site works across all devices and screen sizes, bringing it's intuitive UX with it. But you be the judge...
Today we offer sincere congratulations to the whole team at The Urbanization Project, and look forward to seeing (and helping) The Urbanization Project leverage these assets and new public facing image to more efficiently communicate the very big, game changing ideas they exist to further, as they're just getting started. Stay tuned!
This project wouldn't have been possible without the skilled work of our truly talented collaborators, including:
We are proud to have helped created the online home of Robert Galbraith, author of the acclaimed first crime novel 'The Cuckoo's Calling'. Robert Galbraith is a pseudonym for J.K. Rowling, author of the Harry Potter series and 'The Casual Vacancy'.
Many thanks to The Assembly for their help with development and design. This was part of our ongoing work with our friends at The Blair Partnership.
Frank Lampard's New Children's Brand Launches Today
Today, a project we've been quietly working away on for some time finally launches, and we're thrilled to share it with the public.
As part of our work with long time client and literary agency, The Blair Partnership, we've had the pleasure of helping Frank Lampard, English footballer extraordinaire (and genuinely good guy), build the brand of his new children's series: Frankie's Magic Football.
Frankie’s Magic Football follows the adventures of school boy Frankie, his football-loving friends and trusty pet dog Max as they battle baddies from fantasy worlds and learn valuable lessons, both on the pitch and off.
We've had the pleasure of working with Frank, his team, and The Blair Partnership to help develop the initial concept into a full fledged, multi-platform content brand proposition. Our work has included the strategy, design, and development of the brand's website, creative directing a photo and video shoot resulting in a series of behind the scenes videos featuring Frank and images of Frank and Frankie (examples below), collaborating with the series' publisher, Little Brown on marketing and social media strategies, and more general brand development strategy as part of The Blair Partnership's all star team.
The project has gotten some great press recently, with write-ups from The Guardian, The Times, and The Telegraph, with many more to come as the brand goes global.
Working on this project has been an immense amount of fun, as Frankie is perfectly poised to ignite the imaginations of kids worldwide while helping reluctant readers to pick up a book and enjoy reading. We're looking forward to helping the brand continue to grow across platforms, and only hope to avoid more awkward moments (see below)!
If you're in the UK, head to your nearest bookshop or supermarket to pick up your copy, or head to Harrods for a book signing with Frank on June 22nd.
A couple of months ago we wrote about beginning work with The Urbanization Project (new organization website coming soon), and how much we were looking forward to digging into their messaging, branding, and communications strategy.
What Professor Shlomo Angel calls "the urbanization project" is humanity's biggest, grandest, and arguably, one of its most important projects. We believe it represents one of the greatest opportunities in the coming century to create meaningful, sustainable, and lasting change for billions of people.
These aren't your average academics; they're practitioners, they're doers, and they're problem solvers, and we've been privileged to get to know and appreciate their work up close, and to work towards making it actionable and accessible for the public.
We believe the best currency for exchanging these big ideas is accessible and compelling storytelling. As a seamless expression of our strategy work, and as part of a forthcoming full brand refresh, messaging overhaul, and launch, Global Natives is producing a series of short videos designed to resonate, to impart the vision of their approach and importance of the work they're doing, well beyond from the ivory tower of academia.
Last week in New York City, months of internal messaging and branding work came to life as we kicked off production with in-depth interviews featuring UP principals Paul Romer and Solly Angel. Stay tuned in the months ahead to see the results. Below are some production pictures (not as fun as the videos to come, but one step at a time!).
Paul and Daniel on set at NYU Stern.
Daniel and Michael on set in the NY Public Library Map Room (bonus points for the perfect caption!)
We're terrible at updating our blog, this we readily admit. But it's not that simple. The vast majority of our work is on content, products, brands, or initiatives that aren't public yet, and as such, we're not at liberty to discuss them publicly. The great irony of increasingly doing more interesting work is being able to talk about it less and less. That said, stay tuned for some very exciting announcements and launches in the coming months.
But... there is some exciting news we can share at this time: we're hiring! And we want YOU (if you're particularly awesome that is).
Our London office is quickly growing, as we increase the breadth and depth of our offerings to our innovative clients around the world, and as such, we're looking to add several all stars to our staff ASAP. These roles are dynamic, challenging, and come with the option to quickly advance.
We're looking for multiple Junior Strategists, from entry-mid level, to play critical roles on a wide range of client accounts, with an emphasis on digital strategy and production. If you've got solid experience coming up with big ideas and helping make them actionable, regardless of sector, please be in touch.
We're also looking to hire an Office Manager/Personal Assistant (don't worry, we'll come up with a much cooler title), basically someone to be the glue and help Daniel, our CEO, keep the trains running on time and everyone having fun. This is a great opportunity for someone who is young, organized, and enjoys a fast paced and dynamic environment and set of responsibilities.
Daniel started this business to help clients with big ideas change the world, AND to have a work life balance. We all work hard and often long hours on rewarding projects, but always place a premium on pursuing our passions and chill time outside of work. We hire people for who they are inside and outside of the office, and would look to support and applaud any passion projects you’re pursuing. Company culture includes field trips to art fairs, team dinners at great restaurants, a causal and fun work environment, and being behind the scenes on well-known initiatives.
We value personal referrals above all, so please do tell your friends!
Today we're pleased to announce a new stealth stage startup that's hired Global Natives us to help them take an existing retail security technology, and design a product, identity, and purpose for it.
We have deep experience in tech, and love working with startups at every stage to both create and define their products and brands, as well as to help them evolve to the next level.
Our new client's technology is an industry first for retail gift cards (a billion dollar + industry), and we're thrilled to help them define the future of the gift card.
We're already off to the races, and have conceptualized the process around the question: how do you make a gift card thoughtful? We're confident that answering that question will result in exactly the sort of innovative thinking and actionable solution Global Natives is known for.
Lumos, the international children's charity founded by J.K. Rowling engaged Global Natives to do a top to bottom brand refresh in advance of a major moment in the spotlight. That moment occurred last month, when the eBook version of The Tales of Beetle the Bard (a lateral book to the Harry Potter series) went on sale on Pottermore, with proceeds benefitting Lumos.
In the past months, we worked hand in hand with Lumos' CEO and her amazing staff, both at their London HQ and in the field, to redefine how Lumos tells its story and engages the public with it. This was primarily accomplished as a result of a comprehensive process in which we deconstructed the brand via staff interviews and field research. Their work is so powerful, so important, but also complicated, and hard to immediately grasp given its breadth and depth. Thus, the initial focus of our work was entirely new branding and messaging. Once that was locked in, they put it to use... in a lot of places!
We're proud to say that the finished products of the months' long process speak for themselves. To tell their story across platforms, at eye level, to a multitude of demographics, we created:
A new website for Lumos that looks like anything but a standard charity website, with the emphasis placed on ongoing and dynamic storytelling. A major thanks to our friends at Public Society in Brooklyn for their help with design and development.
We also worked with the very talented people at Giant Ant in Vancouver to create a short animation that very ably explains what Lumos does and why it matters. We accomplished this by telling the story of a fictional little girl that exemplifies the very real problems Lumos exists to solve, and does so in just two minutes, with help from the animation's narrator, J.K. Rowling.
With multi-platform storytelling at the heart of Lumos' brand refresh, we also executive produced a live action series of videos for Lumos with help from the gentlemen of Short Form Film in London and Extra Veg in Edinburgh. We're looking forward to all of them being released in the coming months; you can check out the first one here.
