art
October 2008 
Are you SURPRISING your market?
Yvette
Quidam (pronounced "key-DAHM"; IPA: [kiË'daËm]) means "a certain one/thing" or "anonymous passerby" in Classical Latin, and is the ninth show produced/performed by Cirque du Soleil.
Cultural Fusion is creating the Avant Garde of Event Marketing & Tradeshows by marrying "art as philosophy" to meaningful marketing (Clear CRM strategy).
"The smartest, most successful companies, for example, take pains to
pursue not only present customer desires but anticipated, as-yet
unexpressed, customers needs and desires in the future. Such
projections require both research and imagination.Take Toyota, for
example, perennially ranked among the top five sellers of cars and
trucks in the US....
"The companies who are innovative ask
totally different questions from those who are not...A traditional set
of management questions begins with ‘How can we listen to our market
better?' and ‘How can we meet customers' requirements?' But creative
companies like Toyota ask ‘How can we SURPRISE our market?' Answering
that one requires a high level of commitment to management creativity."
...With society officially downgrading the idea of creativity so strongly,
then, it becomes problematic for businesses to get their managers and
other employees thinking truly freely and "out of the box." Also,
genuine creativity, by definition, subverts the status quo as it faces
down long-held assumptions and uncorks new ways of doing
things....especially when it comes to managers who believe their
company can survive in today's climate without ongoing, abundant
creative thinking in its ranks. "It's a very dangerous thing for
companies to feel they're sitting pretty the way things are happening
today...when you're faced with the kind of continual market and product
changes we see today, you've got to get ahead of the curve. That
demands utilizing creativity."
Thoughtleading.com
Are you SURPRISING your market?
At the basic practical level the Cultural Fusion art
series helps businesses to cultivate real emotional connections with
customers, offers a better approach to lead generation (horizontal
instead of vertical market pentration)...and combined with CRM
(customer relationship management) tools provides the CRM Strategy to
put you ahead of your competition because in CRM and customer retention
it is the Relationship that makes all the difference.
Not only do you keep the customer longer, emotional bonding around
shared passion and values means you get a larger share per
customer. How to do this begins with engaging the customer's imagination and heart, not just getting them to part with their money.
Bob Iger
One could say i'm re-inventing trade shows and event marketing....or you
could say i'm creating art with purpose ("art as philosophy") to
showcase and bring attention to new technology, products, services etc
that interest me and are making a difference for the better in the
world. At the same time i am seeking benefit causes related to global social responsibility.
Imagine...a new kind of interactive event marketing opportunity based on a radically new approach that yields far better conversion rates per encounter. Typically marketing offers a conversion ratio of one in many thousands of exposures to your prospects. What if you could get conversion rates more in the range of 1:66?
Fusion Installatie Genesis
for example, has several stations and there are a few that call for wood (recycled
or promoting a sustainable operation).....one calls for wood veneer to develop one of the pieces (Section A i think)....if you click the concpet map i have already identified some of the material/technology sponsors that are needed to construct some of the pieces. Take a look
and if you or someone you know produces or distributes the material cited in the cmap, send them here or introduce us.
If we share converging passions Your company may have the opportunity to commission some part of this artwork to promote your brand....As top supporter you can sponsor a tour of the artwork as part of Another little Peace 2007
Our approach to event marketing delivers more than just a PR event, it's a field lab for R&D, an opportunity to premier a product before a full blown launch (to be sure you've gotten it right) and this level of relationship building creates advocates who will help reduce your
marketing costs AND protect your brand.
Surprise your customers and prospects by shaking off the status quo. Invite them to join you in "Prosperous Play" as you make a positive difference in society. Engage their imaginations and hearts to distinguish yourself from the pack and to make it harder for the competition to lure your customers away.
Imagine.....Create alter egos for your sales team....we'll help you to create an Immortal Ego character to feature in promotional items, in messages delivered to the leads that are cultivated during this campaign, develop short animations, cartoon strips, cell phone wallpaper, ringtones, etc (available by mobile devices and the web) to keep those contacts and existing customers engaged. We then help create memorable contexts for presenting offers and incentives to existing and potential customers.
Imagine Bluetooth integration to deliver strategic offers when your customer is near a retailer that carries your products/brand....there are a myriad of options in how we can help you use creative content to deliver engaging messages via mobile device as well as the web.
Better yet, you do so on the customer's terms in a way that will facilitate real emotional
connections as well a chance to learn more about your products. This is in contrast to traditional advertising which most of us have become adept at tuning out. However in this context, your customer wants to hear from you and is interested in the content you share.
We help you use this character as the basis of telling the stories you want to share with customers about your product.
In an upcoming incarnation of our website we'll be adding a virtual hangout for the Immortal Egos so that would create more opportunities to make use of your character as a means of
interacting with your potential and existing customers to cultivate your brand community.
Access: Public
Yvette: This is stunning and exciting! What a horizon-expanding vision and invitation to crete SURPRISE! First class! Blessings, ajn
AJN: As always….thank you for your support and encouragement. It is deeply appreciated!
Much of interest here and in your pod, Yvette. And, if I may, more beauty and clarity, more beauty and clarity. The direction you are going is good, but it still feels fuzzy and confusing. It can take years to achieve deep beauty and deep clarity; breathe deeply, listen to the still small voice within, be patient with yourself and the world, and stay in touch as you surprise and dazzle your market more and more elegantly.
Thanks, for your comments, Micheal. Cultural Fusion as an art movement is a process that is exploring that which is not yet clear…if it were there would be no need for discovery. Part of the challenge is to accept that what is being embarked upon is deeply complex and there is no escaping that….the simplification that it seems you and many others desire will come as people participate in the progression that i can best describe as growth.
The global community faces many complex challenges, so perhaps the small steps are where simplicity is to be found….but my attention is presently on laying out an overarching plan (art series) for addressing many of them. Instead of trying to take in the whole, perhaps some would be more comfortable just focusing on a single project or idea to explore at their own pace?
A few thoughts:
1. To some extent, you seem to be encouraging on-line conversation and the creation of a distinctive on-line community, both here at Zaadz and at your Cultural Fusion site.
2. Insofar as what I see is mostly on-line conversation, how is it an “art movement”? I admit I have not followed all of your links, so if I was only to follow one or two links to understand how it is an art movement, which one or two links should I follow?
3. I'm interested in nurturing and supporting the creation of new subcultures, and I could see both on-line conversation and an art movement contributing to the creation of such subcultures. Indeed, much of your rhetoric regarding “Cultural Fusion” indicates to me that you share a similar interest in the creation of new subcultures. Can you explain the relationship between:
A. The on-line conversations.
B. The art movement.
C. New subcultures that you would like to see come into being?
I hope this helps; I really do simply want to understand your vision more clearly.
Peace,
Michael
1. To some extent, you seem to be encouraging on-line conversation and the creation of a distinctive on-line community, both here at Zaadz and at your Cultural Fusion site.
Yes as it's been a fun way to experiment with social network and the communities that evolve around this sort of work.
2. Insofar as what I see is mostly on-line conversation, how is it an “art movement”? I admit I have not followed all of your links, so if I was only to follow one or two links to understand how it is an art movement, which one or two links should I follow?
The simple answer is that what you describe are ingredients in my art series, which is described in the pbwiki pages. The links themselves are also ingredients and will be used to tally clicks as attention data in a software application that will be a part of an installation station in Fusion Installatie Genesis. Will skip including the link here, but there's a board for it in the what is prosperous play pod.
Art:Movement
Cultural_Fusion is an Art:Series AND an art movement… Project:Oci_Novosti is an Art:Series … because it is emerging as a SoulFood:Cuisine, AKA Project:Oci_Novosti Balkans.
Cultural_Fusion is an art movement because it invites other Art:Artists to join in. As an art movement, it infuses Attention and Passion as assets and SoulFood:Ingredients that create a new interdisciplinarity model for automating global social responsibility holistically.
Art Movement from wikipedia:
An art movement is a tendency or style in art with a specific common philosophy or goal, followed by a group of artists during a restricted period of time, or, at least, with the heyday of the movement more or less strictly so restricted (usually a few months, years or decades). Art movements were especially important in modern art, where each consecutive movement was considered as a new avant-garde. Movements have almost entirely disappeared in contemporary art, where individualism and diversity prevail.
The term refers to tendencies in visual art, novel ideas and architecture, and sometimes literature. In music it is more common to speak about genres and styles instead. See also cultural movement, a term with a broader connotation.
Sometimes art movements are ironically referred to as -isms.
For a list of the Cultural Fusion artists to date see CF:Humanity page
3. I'm interested in nurturing and supporting the creation of new subcultures, and I could see both on-line conversation and an art movement contributing to the creation of such subcultures. Indeed, much of your rhetoric regarding “Cultural Fusion” indicates to me that you share a similar interest in the creation of new subcultures. Can you explain the relationship between:
A. The on-line conversations.
B. The art movement.
C. New subcultures that you would like to see come into being?
Sure. By creating the infrastructure to support increasing numbers of people in being the change they want to see in the world using art as an interactive experience that engages stakeholders in affirming ways.
A, creates the context for exploring possibilities and connections…
B, is a key to creating/defining the context for the exploration….
C, is the attention that the art attracts in the form of sponsors to commission the completion/exhibition of the art, artists to contribute ingredients, an audience to appreciate and discuss the free art (installations) that are created, and customers to purchase both “virtual gifts” (helping HIV/AIDS orphans and other causes) as well as individual pieces of art (components in the installations)…this will be one function for Hotel Infinity. (again skipping the link, but there's a board for that also in the Prosperous Play pod)
Thank you, Michael , for the opportunity to answer your questions.i hope it helps :-)
All the best,
Yvette
Yes, this is helpful, Yvette, especially the specific list of artists working on this. As they fill out their respective pages more it will be even more helpful. Concrete examples are tremendously valuable.
Thanks,
Michael
Actually, Michael, that won't be the space where their portfolios will take shape….the pbwiki site is more of an “open work space” so i used it a bit like i would my sketch book. When i start a piece i write the concept in words first and since this “art as philosophy” there a great deal of conceptual development and research involved. My colleague Ron collaborates to help me find a consistent structure for the work that is based on his work with the Theory of Attention.
This is also a development Space for Ronald_Wopereis's next book advancing his Theory of Attention
On the comfusion.pbwiki.com main page i describe it as….
a development site this is my model done before the full size marble sculpture is undertaken. This is the development space for my Art:Series that is also a CRM_strategy service/product with multiple dimensions. The question was: what does CRM_strategy infused with Attention look like? This Project is the reply.
i see the project in phases…this is the creation phase where people engaged in that process will join in….some people are interested mostly in the exhibition phases…..the Hotel Infinity space will offer more in terms of providing portfolio functions, but the “show case” for each artist will depend upon the type of ingredient being contributed and exactly what the project is.I am also exploring approaches to transperency and open models that employ radical inclusion as an alternative approach to security.
So perhaps what you expect to see in terms of concrete examples does not connect with the purpose of that space?
Usually what i have learned from from others who were curious about and yet confused by Cultural Fusion is that they can teach me another language, the one they understand that i may not yet know of or utilize.
In this project we're using needs and attention as signpost to understand where people connect, so i wonder if that is at all helpful to you?
Appreciatively,
Yvette
I played around some on your wiki, following the distinctive terminology being developed, and although I like the general flavor of what you are doing, I kept searching for a “there” somewhere. Perhaps it does not yet exist, and central to what you are doing is creating a community based on a particular linguistic frame, that will then have tangible communal benefits after a critical mass has been reached. In which case my expectations should be changed from believing that I should be discovering a definite something to understanding that this might be an interesting space that evolves, and that you are trying to do so with little assistance. If I had far more time I could play with it with you, and create additional entries, but alas, I do not. Perhaps I'll check in from time to time and see if more develops.
Yes, it seems you got a sense of what is growing….Hotel Infinity will be more of the “here it is” because then we will have phase1 of the first project to point towards.
The Gift Shop will mark the first project within Hotel Infinity. It benefits the HIV/AIDS orphans and deprived children helped by FootStepsforLife's program. However other organizations will also add products, some virtual (sponosorship of literacy program, gardening tools for the family, clean water, construction/expansion of orphanages, educational/art supplies) and some are handmade jewelry, crafts, art, and even some services.
One need is to find businesses to sponsor “thank you gifts” for virtual purchases. We'll encourage original artwork and prints (poster, fine art prints, lithographs, etc) of such to be used as “promotional items”, but the options are only limited by the imagination.
I thought it interesting that you mentioned joining to play as the game aspect is a significant part of what is growing. A game along the lines of Eve Online that is also a virtual lab for community development projects as well as a Cultural Fusion project gallery, so one idea to to experiment with multiple roles…i think of this a bit in the way that in quantum computing data can be both 1 AND 0, as opposed to 1 or 0. That's part of the reason for the attention to roles and game rules at the pbwiki…at present i like playing with the visuals of the text but it will also helps us as we get closer to forumlating the game, developing the short films for projects like the Immortal Egos (Sadistic Ophelia)….
In terms of the lack of participation at the wiki site, you have to remember it is a bit like my sketchbook/studio space. All my ideas start out in writing and the concepts are developed from that. If we compare it to a more traditional art project…if i were to open the studio doors and invite passer-byers to come in, most would not….a few might pause and engage a bit before moving on, but only the collaborating artists will actually enter and participate actively. And even then, only to the point that their ingredient is required so they may not stay for the entire process but rather return when their ingredient is called for or as they feel the urge to touch base on the progress…much of that would not be added to the pbwiki site.
The people who stroll by are also free to check in as they feel the desire to do so because the value of attention is central to what this project is exploring. Attention to seems to one of those things we really function with a limited supply of, so i treasure every bit that people are willing to share :-) Experience has shown me that more people seem interested in the exhibition than the creation process, but for some the process leading up to the result is where the magic happens….i supposed i made part of the process public for folks who are a bit like me….itching for a chance to peek behind the curtain ;-)
Although the pbwiki (studio) is always open, as is my workspace here at zaadz…..I'd love to invite you when we launch Hotel Infinity. Your attention is appreciated!