• Hi, I’m Brad Abare

  I'm a make-it-happen guy working with big idea people. I design teams and orchestrate strategy so that great ideas I believe in get done.
  
  I am Jamaica's husband, Foursquare's comm director, Personality's founder, and a catalyst for CFCC.
  
  
• Search for:

• Archives (by category)

  Select Category Abare News Big Ideal Brad Works God, Faith & Spirituality Hot Topic Inspiration Leadership Life’s Journey Media Politics Rant Reading Room Stuff I Like The City Wisdom

• Archives (by month)

  Select Month March 2010 February 2010 January 2010 December 2009 November 2009 October 2009 September 2009 August 2009 July 2009 June 2009 May 2009 April 2009 March 2009 February 2009 January 2009 December 2008 November 2008 October 2008 September 2008 August 2008 July 2008 June 2008 May 2008 April 2008 March 2008 February 2008 January 2008 December 2007 November 2007 October 2007 September 2007 August 2007 July 2007 June 2007 May 2007 April 2007 March 2007 February 2007 January 2007 December 2006 November 2006 October 2006 July 2006 June 2006 May 2006 April 2006 March 2006 February 2006 January 2006 December 2005 October 2005 July 2005 June 2005 May 2005 April 2005 March 2005 February 2005 January 2005 December 2004 November 2004 October 2004 September 2004 August 2004 July 2004 June 2004 May 2004 April 2004 March 2004 February 2004 January 2004 December 2003

• Recent Comments

  • Ben Eige on Managers, Ministers, Manipulators
  • Joshua Cody on Self-Sacrifice Always Wins
  • abby on Unity to Begin, Not End
  • Bernie on What Business Are You In?
  • Brad Abare on Unity to Begin, Not End

• Subscribe

  Add my RSS feed to your reader.

The digital media director on my Foursquare comm team showed this to me. When I see things like this, it makes me want to quit everything I’m doing, buy a Canon EOS 5D Mark II Digital SLR Camera, an airline ticket to another world and attempt to capture the beauty of elsewhere.

If I had 1% of the creative craft people like this have, I think I could go places.

Greenpeace: Voices of change. Shot on Canon 5dmkII by Philip Bloom.

I’m a Franklin fan so when I stumbled upon Maira Kalman’s brilliant work for the NY Times, I was hooked. It’s like a stroll down Franklin Lane through the eyes of an artist.

Kalman is a great painter and the story she tells through her art is very engaging. I was particularly interested in how Franklin spent a day, with a page right out of his day planner.

Kalman’s style reminds me a little bit of Richard Stine, who also tells great stories through art.

(Link via Daniel Pink)

Ever since I was a teenager, I’ve had a peculiar interest in the magazine publishing industry. I remember taking advantage of free subscription offers before I would cancel after the trial period to avoid incurring bills at such a young age.

I was 15 when I started selling advertising for a niche magazine and by 16 I wrote my first business plan for a student magazine. It would launch a year later and continue until I was 20.

I’ve continued to love magazines and I subscribe to at least 20, including Fast Company, Time, Fortune, Christianity Today and Adbusters. I’ve seen many come and go over the years (George, Life and Portfolio have been missed) and many more struggle their way through tough times (Paste and Relevant are recent examples).

One of the trends I’ve noticed lately is the idea of having a celebrity editor. A magazine will turn an entire issue over to a “guest editor” and infuse their personality into a particular issue. Wired teamed with mister mystery man J.J. Abrams and Newsweek teamed with satirical news host Stephen Colbert in what was a hilariously historical moment.

It’s an obvious and admittedly planned publicity stunt intended to sell more copies on the newsstand. I kind of like the idea.

Tip: I read the majority of my magazines when I’m on the dreadmill (er, I mean, treadmill) at the gym.

I love magazines!

I’ve been a TED fan for many years, a peripheral observer to the cult-like movement started back in 1984 “out of the observation by Richard Saul Wurman of a powerful convergence between Technology, Entertainment and Design.” In 2001, media entrepreneur Chris Anderson struck a deal with Wurman for the passing of the TED torch. The momentum has been gaining ever since.

Primarily an event-based movement—and not inexpensive to us common folk—TED has been making its mostly brilliant talks available in a variety of formats. This is where guys like me can benefit because I can experience the 18-minute talks (give or take) on my Apple TV, iPhone and online.

Go TED.

For the past few months, my friend Charles Lee has been putting together an “unconference” that is shaping up to be pretty sweet. On February 27-28, 2009, yours truly and a bunch of other cool kids, will be gathering in Orange County for The Idea Camp. It’s a free hybrid conference for people that find themselves using words like social entrepreneurialism, non-profit, technology, media, creativity, culture making, church future, spiritual formation and compassionate justice.

If you’re interested in joining other innovative and creative leaders from around the country to share ideas, intentionally network, and think collaboratively, I’d love to see you there.

I was reading the latest issue of Ode magazine earlier this week and really appreciated their feature and focus on failure. The whole issue was about the “upside of down.” I just recently blogged about failing faster so this was a nice supplement to my recent pondering.

I was especially intrigued to stumble upon Ode’s mention of the online Failure Magazine.

Jason Zasky learned firsthand the potential of tinkering with an offbeat idea. As a writer for the now-defunct Musician Magazine, he and the the staff were laid off in 1999 when the magazine folded. He found himself walking the streets of New York City with his cousin, who suggested he start a magazine about failure. Now co-founder and editor of the online Failure Magazine, which just celebrated its eighth anniversary, Zasky jokes, “As soon as I heard those two words together, I like to tell people now, I saw failure as my future.”

And naturally [Jason Zasky] has a lot of perspective on the topic after eight years writing about it. Mainly, he feels, failure is in the eye of the beholder. “Success is kind of boring,” Zasky says. “Failure is much more interesting to read about, and to study, and certainly to work on. It’s a universal experience we can all relate to.” Often, he says, success is completely accidental, and is built on something that is viewed initially as failure.

Having failed way more times than I have succeeded, I am always encouraged by failure’s many advantages. Did you know Viagra started out as a mistake? Ode’s Marisa Taylor says that in 1992, “Pfizer was testing the drug sildenafil for the alleviation of angina, chest pains caused by heart disease. The men involved in the clinical trials for the medication found that, while it didn’t affect their chest pain very much, it did have a marked effect on their libidos. Pfizer’s blunder launched a multibillion-dollar industry.”

Talk about an upside (no pun intended) to failure!

I don’t remember how or when I became a subscriber to Ode magazine, but it’s been coming to me for the past year or so. Although it’s not my favorite magazine—I notice myself skimming it more than reading it—the July 2008 issue really grabbed my attention. The whole issue was built around the theme of silence. The first two spreads were all white pages with a minimal amount of gorgeous copy that set the tone for the rest of the issue. The last page was a reprint of the musical score by John Cage titled 4′33″.

On August 29, 1952, at a concert hall in Woodstock, New York, pianist David Tudor sat down to play avant-garde American composer John Cage’s creation, 4′33″. The piece requires the performer to sit at the piano for four minutes and 33 seconds without touching a key. “Played” in three movements, 4′33″ is considered one of the most revolutionary compositions of modern times. What audiences hear may be the pianist turning pages of sheet music, someone succumbing to a coughing fit, or—in the case of the 1952 debut—the shuffling sounds of people walking out in disgust. Nonetheless, 4′33″ lives on: in a silent song by John Lennon and Yoko Ono and the lyrics of rapper MC Paul Barman, who brags in Excuse Me that he “can rock the mic to ‘Silence’ by John Cage.” In case you want to play it at home, here’s the sheet music. Tacet is Latin for “silence.” —Josey Duncan

I

Tacet

II

Tacet

III

Tacet

My love for magazines began a few years before starting my own magazine 12 years ago. I’ve been a student of the industry ever since. I love to see how they evolve and innovate (or not). This might explain why I have so many subscriptions coming every month!

This past weekend in New York I got to hang out with my brother Craig for a couple days. He just moved to Manhattan a month ago and is loving it. On Saturday night we went to the Broadway performance of May Poppins and it was amazing. It’s been awhile since I’ve watched the movie–the story is powerful. Seeing it on stage was really moving–props to the producers for the production values. The effects and stunts were incredible. Great show!

Just got my new Kindle today from Amazon. I have been wanting something like this for quite sometime so when I heard the announcement last week I jumped on it right away. I know I’m a sucker for the early adopter thing (yes, I got an iPhone on day one), but it’s easy for me to justify when the world I live and breath is communications and marketing. So there.

I have not used my Kindle enough to give any sort of review, but I’m anxious to play with it this week. The packaging is pretty cool–definitely Apple-esque in Amazon’s approach. And while Amazon founder Jeff Bezos ain’t no Steve Jobs, I am curious to see if Kindle does to the book industry what the iPod did to the music industry. The disruption may be a little more far-fetched, but in the brief moments I’ve spent with Kindle so far, this thing is pretty amazing. It seems to be the perfect companion for reading nuts like myself.

I love that the screen doesn’t look or feel like a laptop. It’s a whole new technology that uses digital ink to create pages on the fly. It is really comfortable to read.

I really like it when books have promo videos that communicate the big idea. It seems like a contradiction to have a video promote a book (different audiences, less room for imagination, etc.), but a 1-3 minute teaser for a book is brilliant.

I saw a book promo video today for Shalom Auslander’s new book, Foreskin’s Lament.

As if the title of the book alone wouldn’t pique your interest–the video certainly does. Love it!

Next Page →