Rev Run Remixes SXSW

What an apt metaphor for the intersection of art and culture. This Saturday, we at MRY are bringing Rev Run to the SXSW party. I’ve always respected his talent and found him to be a true musical visionary. Always slightly ahead of the curve.

Lessons I’ve learned: When I started my career in marketing, I was taught originality at all costs. What I realized over time is that originality comes in many forms. Often it is not in creating something wholly new, but in the cross pollination of what presently exists. It may be as simple as taking two disparate elements and bringing them together in unique new ways. Rev and Aerosmith demonstrated that magically with “Walk This Way”; at the time, a genre bending new look at music.

I really hope he plays that Saturday.

Snoop Dogg on the Instagram Rule of 11

ClickZ was nice enough to publish an article I wrote on the importance of the number 11 on Instagram; the article is here:

http://www.clickz.com/clickz/column/2325052/the-instagram-rule-of-11

A brief synopsis: “The number 11 now represents when your Instagram image has hit a certain level of credibility. Admittedly, I am not that cool on Instagram, since some of my images don’t hit this threshold, but for many users this simple milestone is important. In a study MRY conducted on Millennials’ technology behavior, one young woman noted passionately the need to reach this number. “If I don’t hit 11 likes, I take down the post after a day — it’s just too embarrassing to leave up there. Nobody likes it.”

One of the strategists on my team pointed out to me that as usual Snoop Dogg said it better than me. It’s always amazing to me how a well placed meme with just a few words can truly fill a canvas. A picture really can say a 1000 words.

Thanks for Humoring Me

I know one thing: the web doesn’t need another blog. But I’ve recently been doing a lot of writing and decided I needed a place to house all of this work. I will aim to not add to the clutter and deliver a new perspective built on the unique convergence of ideas.

Personally, I have often found myself at the intersection of unique vantage points; always having one foot in the door of two or more point of views. It all started with where I was born, in Hong Kong, a cross between Chinese history and British opportunity while attending an International school that taught me American creativity (whilst for some odd reason holding a Belgian passport). My parents were one of the few Asian parents who actually encouraged their young son to pursue the arts. I spent a summer at R.I.S.D. oil painting, but then decided that was too impractical and leaped to the counter-point, a Columbia education where I, at first, aimed to major in economics, but landed instead with a major in Philosophy.

My career has spanned cities from Hong Kong, Shanghai, Seoul, to New York. I was first taught branding and story telling first hand by some of the masters of the craft. Always looking to mix it up, a little less than a decade ago I made a conscious decision to see its application not in 30 second video or print but through the lens of technology. I’m really lucky because my day job as the Chief Strategy Officer at MRY and previous jobs at AKQA, McCann, allows me to take all of these disparate points and connect them in new ways.

My simple hope is to share this perspective, not to develop more clutter but a unique vantage point on the intersection of humanity x creativity x technology.

Thanks for reading, I hope I can in some small way help.