Fast Company: Hyper Island puts speed to the test with group-authored book

19 company leaders, three hours and one dinner result in a rapid-fire book, Roadkill or Rabbit: Agency CEOs Write the Book on Speed - Designed by Lucas Stoffel

Originally posted in Fast Company on June 7th, 2012 Written by: Rea Ann Fera

Book Design by: Lucas Stoffel

The Book of Speed by Hyper Island

“Today is faster than yesterday. Yesterday was faster than the day before.” That quote from the opening chapter of a new book from Hyper Island pretty much sums up the state of affairs these days, as the marketing world recognizes the need for speed inherent in the digital era. Companies know they need to be light, agile and fast, but muscle memory leaves many stuck in their pondering, lumbering ways.

In an effort to explore how businesses can and should move faster, digital education group Hyper Island, ad agency organization the 4A’s and ThinkLA assembled 19 top creative business leaders to write the book on speed. And in keeping with the theme, they were asked to conceive, write, illustrate and edit it in three hours. While saving time to eat dinner, as well.

The result is Rabbit or Roadkill: Agency CEOs Write the Book on Speed, which was released on June 6, roughly 24-hours after the rapid-fire, group-authoring session. As can be expected, each of the 19 chapters consist of brief, snack-sized bits of wisdom, the collection of which is compiled in a nice, narrative flow, beginning with chapters like “Press Start” and “Shut the Hell Up and Do Your Job” through to “Change the Game” and “Measured Momentum”. Each chapter contains a brief essay or rumination from the author, along with sketches created during the workshop.

Those looking for an in-depth, well-researched tome on corporate agility will not find it here, but that’s exactly the point says Tim Leake, Hyper Island’s Global Partnership Director, and a former agency creative director himself. Hyper Island, he says, helps people deal with the constant effects of digital disruption, and one of the most common themes they encounter is the need to move faster, to react more quickly. “It’s fundamentally working differently than we’re used to working as ad agencies,” he says.

“When writing a book literally in a matter of hours, there are certain things you’ll be able to accomplish there and creative hacks to be able to do it, but there are also limitations as to what that book can be,” adds Leake. “It can’t be the same book as if you had six months to a year and lots of interviews and research. These are the same limitations agencies and brands are stuck with when they need to be able to react quickly. They can’t do the same things as when they have six months to a year to do a campaign.” This being the first in what Hyper Island hopes is a series titled Write the Book on It, the entire process was experimental. “I don’t even know if we can do what we’re hoping to do,” said Leake a few days before the workshop took place.

So how did the experience go? Well, as promised, a PDF version of the book was released within 24 hours of the event. And 19 top business leaders apparently played ball when asked to write a book. Now!

Patrick O’Neill, ECD, TBWA\Chiat\Day and author of the book’s first chapter, “Press Start”, says his takeaway from the experience was that feeling uncomfortable with speed is in fact a good thing. “It’s liberating to not hold onto your ideas and to be forced to think about them in a faster way. Your relevance is how fast you are, it seems like. The quality of ideas and everything we put out in the world is important, as marketers. But if it’s not of the moment, or it’s not relevant, it doesn’t count as much as it used to. That tension can really create some new thinking.”

Meanwhile, Eric Johnson, President, Ignited says that, “One of the principles that seemed to come across is that when you give a scarcity of time and a very specific focus, you can accomplish a hell of a lot of stuff. All too often in our business, we treat every project as such a precious thing that we tend to let people go on and on, but you don’t really have to.”

With one book now complete, Leake says the plan is to bring the process to Cannes where they’ll be leading a seminar around best practices for the agency of the future. With more less time (one hour), more people and an unknown group of contributors, Leake admits the process will be much different that the experience for Rabbit or Roadkill. But as the books title professes, which is pulled from a chapter written by Dan Olsen, Managing Director, Wunderman West, “We must be quick in bringing an idea to life, test it, and if it doesn’t work, change it.”

New York Times: Raising Glasses to Celebrate the Toast

Originally posted in the The New York Times on April 25th, 2012

Written by: Robert Simonson

Photography by: Lucas Stoffel - Additional featured in the Huffington Post

Oscar Eustis was among the speakers Tuesday night at Brasserie Pushkin, the new Russian restaurant on West 57th Street, for a dinner celebrating the art of the toast. He didn’t know the toast he would be giving; it would be handed to him some time before the spotlight hit. But he wasn’t nervous. He’d had some practice at this sort of thing.

Anne Hathaway

Tom Hanks

Jesse Tyler Ferguson

Tony Kushner

Cipriani's New York

Lapham's Quarterly

More Lapham's Quarterly event photos by: Lucas Stoffel

“I was toastmaster general of Rhode Island for many years,” said Mr. Eustis, who was artistic director of Trinity Repertory Company in Providence, R.I., for 11 years before taking the same post at the Public Theater. It was an unofficial, unpaid title given to him by the mayor of Providence. Was he ever actually called upon to make toasts? “Constantly,” he said. “In a state that small, if you’re a public figure, you are drawn upon incessantly. I have spoken to every Rotary Club in the state of Rhode Island.”

Mr. Eustis ended up delivering a handful of words from Lord Byron: “Let us have wine and women, mirth and laughter/ Sermons and soda-water for the morning after.”

The event was thrown by Lapham’s Quarterly, the literary journal founded, edited and published by Lewis Lapham. “It’s a fun thing to do, an expression of good will,” said Mr. Lapham, who was for many years the editor of Harper’s Magazine. “It’s not a fund-raiser or political event. It’s an expression of fondness for friends of the Quarterly. Four or five times a year, we do something for them.” As you might expect from a man whose family line can be traced back to the Jefferson administration, Mr. Lapham has known his share of skilled toastmasters. “George Plimpton did it beautifully. Calvin Trillin does it very well.”

Kira Brunner Don, executive editor of the Quarterly, said the choice of venue was appropriate, because Russians like to toast. “I lived for many years in eastern Russia and I’d say there’s definitely an art to toasting there,” Ms. Don said. “Everyone, at some point in the dinner, toasts. That’s my favorite thing about good drinking and good Russian meals.”

To wash down the fine words, the guests — who included the film producer Jean Doumanian and Jackie Drexel, an Astor family descendant whose grandmother survived the sinking of the Titanic — were given a choice: an Argentinian Malbec, an Italian Pinot Grigio, prosecco and two house vodkas, one infused with cranberries, the other with horseradish.

Many of the toastmaking duties were taken up by the Quarterly staff. Most recitations were brief, a few lines or so. Ms. Don recited a rhyming couplet by Thackeray. Hugh Malone, the journal’s associate publisher, relayed a William Jennings Bryan toast originally aimed at a Japanese admiral. Since Bryan was a teetotaler, the statesman chased the salute with water, reasoning that the admiral had won more victories on water than on Champagne. Timothy Don, the Quarterly’s art director, uttered a glass-raiser by the brasserie’s namesake, Pushkin, which ended with the hope that “wine will make us less uncouth.”

Things got even more Russian with the turn of the Quarterly’s associate editor, Aidan Flax-Clark. His toast was in the mother tongue. “It’s rather rude in Russian,” he explained. “I’m going to translate it more gently.”

The general gist: Here’s to us; to heck with them.

Machu Picchu, Peru: Best Tour Guide

Machu Picchu, Peru

Photography by Lucas Stoffel can be licensed on Shutterstock and Getty Images

Embedded within a dramatic landscape at the meeting point between the Peruvian Andes and the Amazon Basin, the Historic Sanctuary of Machu Picchu is among the greatest artistic, architectural and land use achievements anywhere and the most significant tangible legacy of the Inca civilization. Recognized for outstanding cultural and natural values, the mixed World Heritage property covers 32,592 hectares of mountain slopes, peaks and valleys surrounding its heart, the spectacular archaeological monument of “La Ciudadela” (the Citadel) at more than 2,400 meters above sea level. Built in the fifteenth century Machu Picchu was abandoned when the Inca Empire was conquered by the Spaniards in the sixteenth century. It was not until 1911 that the archaeological complex was made known to the outside world.

Machu Picchu by Lucas Stoffel

The approximately 200 structures making up this outstanding religious, ceremonial, astronomical and agricultural centre are set on a steep ridge, crisscrossed by stone terraces. Following a rigorous plan the city is divided into a lower and upper part, separating the farming from residential areas, with a large square between the two. To this day, many of Machu Picchu’s mysteries remain unresolved, including the exact role it may have played in the Incas’ sophisticated understanding of astronomy and domestication of wild plant species.

Alpaca's at Machu Picchu by Lucas Stoffel

The massive yet refined architecture of Machu Picchu blends exceptionally well with the stunning natural environment, with which it is intricately linked. Numerous subsidiary centres, an extensive road and trail system, irrigation canals and agricultural terraces bear witness to longstanding, often on-going human use. The rugged topography making some areas difficult to access has resulted in a mosaic of used areas and diverse natural habitats. The Eastern slopes of the tropical Andes with its enormous gradient from high altitude “Puna” grasslands and Polylepis thickets to montane cloud forests all the way down towards the tropical lowland forests are known to harbour a rich biodiversity and high endemism of global significance. Despite its small size the property contributes to conserving a very rich habitat and species diversity with remarkable endemic and relict flora and fauna.

Machu Picchu by Lucas Stoffel

#Peru #Cusco #7Wonders