The Commons

The following are three sites I visit as sources of interesting stuff and flashes of inspiration.  Some have marketing relevance others have talks and presentations given by the most creative minds of our generation.  But whatever the content, they never fail to reveal something interesting about the human psyche, marketing of social campaigns, good design, and many other things you might not know you wanted to know.

IF! – IF! is a compendium of links and articles produced and found by PSFK, a trends and innovation company, spearheaded by Piers Fawkes, a leading trends spotter.  It’s always full of neat stuff, from interesting marketing campaigns and tactics to nicely designed packaging for consumer products – it has something for everyone.

Ted Talks - TED stands for Technology, Entertainment, Design and their mission is to spread ideas.  The talks and lectures posted on their site, and viewable for free, are by the leading living minds and cover topics across the board, from the social structure of ant colonies to the mystery box that fuels much of JJ Abrams’ (the co-creator of Lost) work, and lots in between.  I watch a lecture every now and again if I just need to hear something completely fascinating and random.

Osocio – Osocio describes itself as “the place where marketing and activism collide.”  The site provides a compilation of interesting advertising and marketing campaigns being produced and implemented around the world for leading social causes/non-governmental organizations e.g. Human Rights Watch, Green Peace, the United Nations, anti-smoking, AIDS awareness, etc.  This site provides insight into the type of advertising and marketing being done for a wide range of organizations in the non-profit space.

- John Kim, Account Planner

Tags: nonprofit communications, resources, technology, trends