History in the Making

New Year's Eve Day Rundown

• Just discovered the @replies function on Twitter. For the love. No wonder Twitter has been so boring to me. Whole new world.
• Got the Killers new album last night with a gift card. Awesome sounds.
• Only three of us here in the Catalyst offices on New Year's Eve day.
• Brad Lom and I are headed to the Innovation3 Gathering in Dallas at the end of the month.
• I read that movie soundtracks are really the only CDs that are selling well. Everything else is digital. I have certainly helped the cause.
• Ainsley and I are expecting #3 in July. We've had four of our children's names picked-out long before we starting having them. And yes, they're all vintage American western names. =)
• Unfortunately, Ainsley's been flu-ridden for a week. Add 1st trimester sickness to that... and you've got misery.
• I've stumbled into a few God-appointed friendships over the last few months that are blessing my socks off: John Bryson of Fellowship Memphis, Ed Stetzer of Lifeway... and John MacMurray from Portland.
• We are 380% over our projected goal for Catalyst west coast in December. Unbelievable. LV Hanson on the west coast and Aaron Foster and Sally Heffner here at home are doing a remarkable job.
• I've been discovering ministry conferences out there that are unknown - aren't even discussed - in my circles of ministry, but are HUGE. It's like discovering life on other planets. It's amazing how absorbed we are in our own worlds.

The Brutal Law of the Lid

This is such a brutal law by Maxwell. It means that if you can't find good leaders to serve with you, it's probably... gulp... your own fault. Great leaders don't follow good leaders. And good leaders don't follow bad leaders. At least, not for very long. Doesn't mean you have to be better at what they do than they are. Most def not. In fact, if you're leading well, you'll be surrounded by talented specialists. But an indicator of your leadership ability is who is standing around you.

Beautiful But Toxic

So custom-engraved Moleskines were all the rage, and then suddenly they stopped producing them. Just discovered why. Apparently, burning Moleskines with a laser creates highly toxic gases including phosgene and chlorine gas. The resulting hydrochloric acid corrodes everything it touches.

Projection Stages

Inspiration from Kanye West's EMA performance:  the next great frontier for video projection is the actual stage surface. Would work really great with Catalyst's elevated, in-the-round staging.

I Like Big Screens and I Cannot Lie

For the love of all that is good and mighty... just noticed the IMAX-of-a-screen that Willow Creek used for its Christmas service, Light.

Top 20 Experiences

Last year, I posted my top 20 inspirations for experience designers. This year, I'm listing the top 20 actual experiences for idea mavens like you.

1.Plan A: The TED Conference.

2. Plan B: the TED Associates Program.

3. Three and a half days at the Disney Institute.

4. A week at the Kilns through the CS Lewis Foundation.

5. The HSM World Business Forum in NYC this October.

6. Burning Man in Nevada's Black Rock Desert.

7. Becoming an extra on a NOOMA film.

8. The Obama Inauguration.

9. Cirque Du Soleil & Criss Angel's BeLIEve show.

10. Garmin's forthcoming NuviFone.

11. The Ritz Carlton Leadership Center.

12. The Killers tour.

13. M. Night Shyamalan's eventual website.

14. Hologram demo with Clark Pro Media.

15. The Sundance Film Festival in Park City, UT

16. Passion City Church's first service TBA in ATL.

17. Catalyst west, of course. =)

18. U2's No Line on the Horizon album release.

19. U2's subsequent NLOTH tour. =)

20. Dr. Ravi Zacharias' Oxford Summer School.

What would you add to your list?

Merry Christmas

Christmas lights at Lake Lanier.
Late night gift wrapping.
Take-out Chinese food.
Long-distance phone calls.
Egg nog.
And movies galore.
Christmas in Georgia.

Ben Cratchit

I'm at work today.
Christmas Eve day.
Not kidding.
We have office hours.
For those who didn't take vacation.
Which I didn't / couldn't.
So five of us are here.
Just letting you know. =)

Light Week on the Blog

Okay, laying low on the blog this week because, despite the empty Catalyst offices for Christmas, I'm still pretty busy this week. Here are a few fun things I've run across lately....

This performance by the Killers at the 2008 EMAs is shock-and-awesome:

Gary Lamb's Revolution Church has a new web page for their relocation that looks pretty hot.

I like the IamSecond.com Campaign, but when I was in Dallas several weeks ago (where it started), I thought it was an ad for Second Baptist Church of Dallas. =)

 

Love the play-on-words in this ad for Criss Angel & Cirque Du Soleil's BELIEVE show in Vegas. The word "lie" is highlighted in "believe."

So excited to speak at the Echo Conference in July. Love the guys at Igniter and COLLIDE and looking forward to meeting Phil Cooke, Phil Vischer and others.

Just recorded our first-in-a-series of hilarious videos by two of our Catalyst west emcees - Tripp and Tyler. We'll be launching a new site for them in January, as well as e-mailing the videos.

New U2

No Line on the Horizon due out March 3. Countdown set.

The Starbucks Generosity Chain

So apparently here at our friendly Suwanee Starbucks there was an epidemic of generosity that broke out on Monday morning. A long line of customers starting paying for the drinks behind them. It went on and on - it was going to be some kind of world record - until someone here at our company (who shall remain nameless =) unknowingly broke the chain. Hey, I wouldn't have done it either... I ain't paying for someone's venti and a bag of muffins. =)

Lincoln

I thought I'd fit-in better in Georgia with a truck. So I bought a big, black one with windows tinted so dark, they'd be illegal in any other state. I can't back up at night because I can't see through the darn windows. It's so tall, I cringe when I'm driving in parking garages. And when I part ways with my environmentally conscious friends, I loiter in the parking lot until they speed away in their fuel-friendly hybrids so that they don't think less of me. I keep the radio on country in case someone rides with me at lunchtime. And when I peeled the dealer stickers away, I left the word "Lincoln" because it reminded me of the president. There. Now you know a little more about me.

Powerless

J:  Listen, when you go into someone's house, stay there until it's time to leave. Don't bring any food or clothes or anything. If the people don't welcome you, then go outside the town and shake the dust off your feet.

P:  Well, we thought we'd just hand-out flyers. Put them on door knobs and all. Probably won't even run into anyone. Figure we'll knock it out in about three hours.

J:  What do you mean, flyers?

P:  You know, like, papyrus that says how you're gonna be at the 'gogue' this weekend.

J:  But what about the power and authority I gave you?

P:  We used it on graphic design.

J:  On what?

P:  How 'bout a wheat buy-down?

The Eye Candy Man

So you know I like to profile great artists here on the Ben blog. Today's is Jonathan Bostic's turn. He was the genius who created the amazing opener at Catalyst east this past year. He's also the man behind the motion graphics for the Passion world tour, the Orange Conference, and even Brooks & Dunn. Met with Jon last week about the motion work for Catalyst west... and it's awe-huh-some.

All in a Day's Work

Budgets, stress, meetings,
profit & loss statements,
proposals, mergers, policies and procedures,
crunching numbers, office politics, impressing the boss,
lay-offs, cut-backs, ride my back, 8 to 5, 
voice mail, e-mail, production schedules, projections...

Come home...

Abolish crime and rid the world of evil.

Breakfast at Matchstic

Went to downtown Atlanta this morning for breakfast with the Matchstic crew. Once a month, this design firm cooks breakfast (off a custom menu) for a select client. This was our turn. Gorgeous office digs, great work, fun guys...

Barton Damer's 2008 Reel

My good friend Barton Damer sent out a motion graphics reel from the past year to his clients, and I was fortunate enough to have two projects in the mix. Barton's a great talent, as you can see... If you can afford him, he'll make you look better than you are.

New Faces of Catalyst

So we've got some new emcees for Catalyst west. Jud Wilhite is steering the ship throughout the two days, but we've signed-on Tripp & Tyler to help with "color commentary." These guys take more of an irreverent approach to life, and their shame factor is at a shocking zero. Some of their ideas have milk-out-the-nose funny; others quite disturbing. =)

What's Your Iconic Look?

So you know me. I like symbols. I like Chuck Colson's glasses, and Garrison Keillor's suspenders, and Steve Jobs' black mock turtleneck with jeans.

This is Rob Bell's symbol. Got it straight off his website. Used in place of his picture.

So what's your iconic look? Maybe it's there, but you haven't developed it yet. If you could use any symbol in place of your photo, what would it be?

Anyone Get the Filter Box Yet?

It went out last week. Anyone get it yet? Curious about what you thought of it...