I know this isnt exactly about photo, but its really cool, and paying attention is our game as photographers. We need to fast observe whats happening in front of us.

Take a look at this ‘Awareness test’, and see if you get them all. Let me know..

Business is not black and white. It’s the shades of grey and splashes of neon green that make us, and our businesses interesting. Differentiation works:

- There are many mp3 players out there. The iPod has a splash of neon green in a grey market. It is simple, sleek and different. The last official count was somewhere around a gabazillion sold.

Find your inner neon green. It starts with being different.  Bet you can’t count the number of passes made by the white team in the video below…. (and by the way, beware of cyclists. )

Aprovechando la onda blanco y negro tributo a Michael Jackson, recorde este comercial del 2008 que te reta a contar cuántos pases hace el equipo blanco. Yo no logré contarlos, en realidad nadie puede, es sumente difícil. Intentelo, haganlo bien y concéntrense.

You spend thousands, perhaps tens or even hundreds of thousands of dollars on your advertising and yet you’re still completely invisible to most of your audience.  What’s going on?  Why after all this time and all those dollars are you still the best-kept-secret in town?

Well, think about it from another perspective.

Do you need a plumber right at this moment?  (If you do, let’s pretend you don’t for the sake of this illustration.)  People who don’t need plumbers probably don’t see all those plumber ads in the papers, or on bus benches, or hear them on the radio.  Oh, they’re there all right, lots of them, but to you, they’re completely invisible…Unless.  The “unless” is if the ad happens to be really creative or interesting in some way that grabs you regardless.  But most plumber ads are pretty much what you expect, and are therefore completely unnoticeable to the 98% of the audience who is not at-need.  (You see where I’m going with this…)

In this case, the best that the plumber can hope for is an equal shot along with all his competition at the time the faucet starts dripping, and not a moment before.  But let’s take the plumber whose advertising is really fresh and interesting, that makes people take notice even when everything is fine.  Then he’s going to be the first name on people’s minds when the sink backs up.

Human beings only pay attention to the things that interest them, and block out all the rest.  It’s a natural defense mechanism that helps the brain cope with too much information.  And only those things that are of immediate interest have a way of showing up as if by magic – such as when you are shopping for a particular car and suddenly, every car on the highway is that car!

For fun, try this wonderful YouTube demonstration:

Funeral advertising is no different.  It’s easy to be visible to your audience when there’s a death in the family.  But imagine how completely invisible you are prior to that need – which is precisely when you most want to reach them!  The more “expected” your advertising, the more invisible you become. (That’s why the canned pre-made funeral ads are the worst thing you can run; they look nice but the audience tunes them out.)

If you want to be noticed, you have to be noticeable.  You need to rise above the general noise level with advertising and marketing that is different, fresh, unconventional and unexpected.  You have to be willing to step out on a limb and surprise the audience and perhaps yourself.

I realize that only a tiny percentage of marketers will actually take this to heart and do anything amazing.  That’s why 95% of ads in any medium – print, TV, billboards, direct mail – or for any industry – beer, office supplies, and yes, funeral homes – are doomed before they leave the production house.  But for those who take the risk, the reward is top-of-mind awareness before, during, and after the need.

That’s an ROI I’d take any day.

I saw this ages ago, but I’m still in awe.. Just count how many passes the white team makes.

The in class video was funny.  I actually got then umber correct about how many passes the team in white had, but I will admit to not seeing the moonwalking bear.  That was hilarious.  I think it would’ve made a great super bowl commercial.  I think it was funny, but at the same time it sends a message about awareness.

Step 1: Watch the short video and see if you can do what they are asking?

Step 2:  Contemplate how this relates to your life…

When I say contemplate I am not so much asking whether or not you are looking out for cyclists.  Although this is very effective and I support it because I too like to ride my bike and sometimes tow the trailer with my kids.

What I mean is, think about the catch phrase you see at the end…

It’s easy to miss something you are not looking for…

This is truly powerful and you must remind yourself each and every day to look for the things that you normally are not looking for.

How does that work you might ask?

Indicators!

I often follow my indicators and see how the dots connect.  As stated in the Steve Jobs Commencement Speech…”Again, you can’t connect the dots looking forward; you can only connect them looking backwards.” – Steve Jobs. 

Sure, it is hard to connect the dots moving forward because often we do not know where the next dot is going to show up.  Looking back you can see all the dots and easily draw a line from one to the next.

Think about where you live today…I am sure you can say exactly how you ended up in the house you are currently living in. I am sure you can say…”This happened and then that happened and then you wouldn’t believe, but this other thing happened and here I am today.”

Indicators are like the little gas light in your car.  It is a nice reminder light that turns on…Letting you know what will eventually happen…You will run out of gas.  Now the key part here is that something “will” happen.  You will run out of gas, unless you take a different course of action. 

You have two actions to take.  One is to pull into a gas station and get gas or the other is to let your car run out of gas and you will be stranded.  Either way you are 100% in control of what the outcome is.  The cool thing about this is that the indicator gave you an insight into what the future would hold.  Gas or no gas, it told you that an action was about to happen.

So if you take your day and you say…”A strange thing happened today…or…I had this interesting thought…or…I met someone today that made me think?”  These are all indicators that you must look deeper into and follow up with.

Recently, I was in an art shop looking at the works of Thomas D. Mangelsen.  Maybe the name does not ring a bell, but he is famous for capturing the shot/photo of a lifetime.  During the running of the salmon he caught a bear, mouth wide open, and a fish about to land in the bear’s mouth.  The name of the shot… “Catch of the Day.” .  Just think about that title itself and how powerful it is.  Maybe it should be called, “Catch of a Lifetime”?  Depending on whether you ask the bear or Thomas D. Mangelsen.

The timing was impeccable.  During the discussion with the staff member I was told that he shot 80+ rolls of film on that trip and sat on the photos for weeks before developing them.  He then developed them and the shot that we all know today is the one that started his whole career.  It is quite possible that without that shot that his career would not be what it is today.

Later on that night I was looking back through my day and thinking about some of the indicators that may have come up.  (They are not always apparent, you sometimes have to look for them…thus the phrase…It’s easy to miss something you are not looking for.)  Then an indicator came into light, just like the gas light that comes on in your car.

The indicator told me that a project that I had on the table was the exact one that I had to follow in order to fulfill my journey in life.  This final product resulting from this project could very well be my “Catch of the Day Photo” for me.  I now know that I must follow through and I must put 100% of my energy into this project.

There have been many indicators that have told me that I must follow through with this project, but I had not taken full note of them until now. Similiar to how the gas gauge tells you that you are full, 1/2 full, 1/4 tank and empty.  The indicators are there with you the whole way during your journey, but it was the final one (the gas light) that told me that I must take an action or I will be stranded.  In this case, possibly stranded in my life.

I choose to take the action of “follow through” instead of running out of gas and being stranded.  This will definitely give me enough gas to get to the end of my chosen journey.  Following these indicators will most definitly prove that I can be successful and I can reach all my dreams.

What indicators have you been missing in your life?  Are you about to run out of gas without taking action? 

This is courtesy of Dothetest

 Imagine…
A passer-by asks you for directions. As you talk to him, two workmen walk between you carrying a door. In a flash the passer-by switches places with one of the workmen, and you are left giving directions to a different person. Do you think you would notice?

Researchers at Harvard University played this trick on some unsuspecting people and over 50 per cent failed to spot the change.

This phenomenon is known as “change blindness” – only a tiny fraction of all the information going into your brain enters your consciousness. People often fail to see a change in their surroundings because their attention is elsewhere.

Even stranger, if you are concentrating on something, you can become blind to other events that you would normally notice. This “inattention blindness” is possibly the reason why motorists collide with cyclists.

Just as it is important for road users to keep an eye out for cyclists, cyclists must also take steps to ensure they are seen by motorists.

Ok watch video closely and count how many times the white team passes the ball.  See if you get the right answer!

A co-worker found this video created by Transport for London (TfL) on MSN.com Monday. I think it’s a clever angle aimed at increasing bicycle awareness. They have another good pedestrian safety ad here and two motorcycle safety ads here and here.

Imagine…

A passer-by asks you for directions. As you talk to him, two workmen walk between you carrying a door. In a flash the passer-by switches places with one of the workmen, and you are left giving directions to a different person. Do you think you would notice?

Researchers at Harvard University played this trick on some unsuspecting people and over 50 per cent failed to spot the change.

This phenomenon is known as “change blindness” – only a tiny fraction of all the information going into your brain enters your consciousness. People often fail to see a change in their surroundings because their attention is elsewhere.

Even stranger, if you are concentrating on something, you can become blind to other events that you would normally notice. This “inattention blindness” is possibly the reason why motorists collide with cyclists.

Just as it is important for road users to keep an eye out for cyclists, cyclists must also take steps to ensure they are seen by motorists.

Australia also has loads of edgy anti-speeding and other safety ads. Perhaps I’ll post a few of those soon.

Borrowed from Millard Fillmore’s Bathtub, with permission:

This is a great ad. It gently pokes your pride in your ability to see what’s going on — from a bicycle safety campaign in Britain urging motorists to look out for bicyclists:

After watching this, I understand that my dream of being a CSI investigator may be unrealistic. A basketball statistician maybe.

VIA: zefrank.com

(Updated: 4/5/08, with more safety videos.)

It may appear flippant to address the issue of safety following the previous post whose subject matters may seem a little careless, or even dangerous. Oh, well, without one, there wouldn’t be the other; so lets talk about safety now.

Stephen had sent me a great link earlier to a PSA from UK entitled “Awareness Test” which I thought was so perfect that I just have to share with you all. Thank you Stephen! So without further ado, let’s go to the video.

Pretty amazing, huh? I didn’t see the funny moonwalking bear the first time, either; so, don’t feel bad. There are just so many distractions on the road and in our daily lives to keep us from what we really need to do, which is to remain focused on safety. Speaking of distractions:

After a little digging, I also found these following videos from the same agency Think! Please take a good look!

In these videos, we see that it is equally important for the motorists (cagers) as well as the motorcyclists to pay extreme attention to what’s going on from all corners, especially because there are always going to be daredevils like THESE IDIOTS (in California because only there is lane-splitting allowed; but not like that???) out on the road!–Lorenzo

Take a break and test yourself… it is harder than it looks…

via… dothetest.co.uk