The Curator News Feed: May 31, 2013
This week we learned about why we have our best ideas in the shower, discovered what it means to Prancercise and got organized with the new Gmail inbox. See for yourself and check out what else the team was reading this week in our last roundup for the month of May!
Why we have our best ideas in the shower: The science of creativity, Buffer. A friend shared this with me this week and it was well worth taking the time to read it all. The article walks you through how our brains work when it comes to creativity -- dopamine and distraction are crucial components in our creative flow, hence getting genius ideas in the shower or at the gym! It then outlines some techniques for how to engage your brain to tackle challenging tasks and pump up the creative flow. Not sure I’ll be putting a notepad in the shower anytime soon, but there were some other great ideas, definitely check it out! – Chelsey
Prancercise Workout Video: Part Trot, Part Prance, All Incredible, Yahoo Shine. If you haven't heard about the latest fitness craze sweeping the nation, allow me to enlighten you. Prancercise: "a springy, rhythmic way of moving forward, similar to a horse’s gait and is ideally induced by elation." Yes, you read that correctly. With more than 2.2 million views and counting as of press time, creator Joanna Rohrback's workout video displaying 4 modes of Prancercise is evidence that truly "viral" videos are both organic and spontaneous. – Noelle
‘Fast & Furious’: 15 Life Lessons, EW.com. My co-workers learned something new about me this week, I'm a Fast & Furious enthusiast. With all their questions and curiosity I'm not sure I can exactly pin point what kickstarted my fascination but regardless at least I have these 15 life lessons to learn from. You know, for those times if I'm ever caught in a street race with Paul Walker and have to jump from one moving car to another. – Brooke
Can Oreo's new "Wonderfilled" Campaign Sap the Cynicism Out of Your Day?, Advertising Age. Somehow, the little crème filled chocolate cookie continues to make splashes, way bigger than those in a glass of milk. (That was almost too much, probably too much) Anyways, the campaign is awesome, they're using Vine and guerrilla tactics. It's all cool stuff, but this quote from the article is the takeaway I see most important. "The idea is that the brand is behaving the way it's preaching…The song asks a lot for an Oreo, but it's trying to put its money where its mouth is, with work that lives up to the task." – Maria
Rejoice the End of the ‘User Name and Password’ May be Nigh, TIME Business. I LOVE this! Remembering umpteen passwords is horribly difficult and, if you store them all in one place and that gets hacked…goodbye everything. Who knows where FIDO will take this, but I love the thinking behind it. – Dan
Food, Inc., Takepart.com. On a completely different note than the previous link, I watched Food, Inc. last night. It's a documentary investigating where our food is sourced and digs into the industry of farming, helping consumers understand how our food is grown/raised and who actually has the power to control it. Needless to say, it was eye-opening. I realized the next day that the group has created a site called Takepart.com that sources the most recent farm/food industry news, recommended reading and other resources to educate people about food. Although Food, Inc. doesn't support the production of Oreo's, they also did a great job behaving the way they preach. It was exciting to see a documentary film support the movement they are trig to create. It's also similar to the work Curator is doing for our client Whole Foods on the Local Forager site. – Maria
Gmail Gets A Brand New Inbox, Mashable. The new Gmail inbox is an organizing machine that will make your deluge of messages look cleaner and easier to manage right off the bat. In essence, it combines a couple Google Labs experiments that have been around for a while to auto-sort incoming messages into bins that are displayed horizontally across the top of your Inbox. The upshot is a more focused inbox, albeit one that might take a little time to train (I've noticed a few bill notifications lumped in with social network notifications, so I've just bumped them over to my "primary" inbox). It's definitely an advanced email feature, so if you're only fielding a dozen or so emails a day, it might be overkill. If you're like me, though, and you get flooded with dozens or more, I highly recommend checking it out. Oh yeah, to install it early on your desktop (iOS and Android versions are coming soon), click the gear in the upper-right of your Gmail inbox, and then click Configure Inbox. Boom. – Paul
PBS mocks reality TV in poster campaign, ADWEEK. If there is one common thread in all reality shows it’s that the new one always highlights an aspect of humanity that’s more depressing than the last. PBS’s new poster campaign uses humor to spark a little introspection, and proves that reality TV is nearly impossible to parody. All that’s missing from their lineup of ridiculous fake shows is one about third-string actors learning to dive. Oh, wait… – Matthew
