I Think Outside My Box Goes Corporate: In a Good Way:-)

As a silhouette on screen I speak to an inconvenient truth.

The continued matriculation of the I Think Outside My Box (iTOMB) project finds me at as much of a surprise as those who see and experience it for the first time - and I am caused to reflect on its humble beginnings as just a cardboard box in a pile of cardboard at Occupy Wall street and think about how it has grown from a pretty good 'one line joke' activist vehicle (a man sitting in a box that says "I Think Outside My Box") to a full blown creative platform for thousands upon thousands of people to freely express themselves through just cardboard, acrylic paint and simple brushes.

On Tuesday, 12 June, I was proud to host the concept in Midtown Manhattan at what is arguably, "the largest worldwide advertising agency by global footprint",according to Adbrands.net, and the subject of my talk was about "Starting from scratch". 

"What if you had to throw away, all the corporate crowns of creativity in the advertising business (the awards, the bonus', the corner office, etc.), and begin again? What would you do?", I was asked.

And my answer has already played out. I'd think outside my box. But on this particular day, my audience was a group of top agency creatives who's perch at the top of an industry could be in jeopardy if they don't rethink themselves and their approach to their businesses quite seriously. And who better to enlighten them, than a man who's been in their position before - and in some cases, in a better position than they.

For those who don't know, I didn't begin my creative career in a box. I began it as a sign painter and journalist as I worked my way through college in both trades finally graduating with a degree in Corporate Communications (concentration: Graphic Design) and a minor in Journalism. And then moving on to become a VP at a top 3 global agency and founder of the first 100% foreign invested agency in Korea.

But on this day, I needed to be just a man, a man stripped of most of what my audience might have considered valuable and brought to his bare credentials - the claim that he was indeed "creative".

To do this, I decided that the worst way would have been to walk into a room and talk about it. Because that's boring and these people wouldn't care. No, for this we needed a device, a suspension of disbelief, a bit of threatre - some mystery, a MacGuffin, if you will - decidedly not a trick, but a way to hold interest that would allow me to get through a seemingly complex story in an unencumbered and convincing way - wanting them to know in the end, who the real man behind the story was.

So thus came the silhouette. A backlit figure, actually behind a screen (with the projector behind me), that could speak with his audience in realtime, whilst controlling a Powerpoint presentation that carried all the visuals to illustrate the live narration and provide a foil I could interact with throughout the presentation. Example: As a live silhouette, I could actually point to pictures of on the screen or even look at myself on the screen, or other images, so bringing one's standard PPT alive in a way that even I hadn't seen before. And since there was no rehearsal, the toys I had provided myself by creation of the live silhouette on live screen, were only made apparent as I worked through the show.

And trust me, it was great fun. Great, great fun. By bringing iTOMB alive in this way I caused the participants to imagine, not only the career and frame of mind that caused me to conceive it, but what it might be like to participate, interactvely as painters, creators and protaganists in whatever the next chapter of iTOMB might be.

In summary, the Global Creative Director who had brought me in said this: "David, thank you - You touched us all and made us think. You made us think! And in the end isn't that what we are supposed to do." 

And so we did. We thought. And I am now caused to think about what propelled me to create the box, a box in which I would need to think my way out of - and the answer lies as such:

You don't go from being a Vice President at the largest advertising agency in the United States, as I was, to protesting at Occupy Wall Street because you screwed the whole situation up yourself - but when it comes to sorting oneself out of that situation, there is no one better than you to do the critical thinking, put pedal to metal (or brush to cardboard as I did), and make the solution so, so much bigger than the canvas one was given.

This I hope, is what we did, with a little smoke and mirrors, last Tuesday for a company and staff that needs, in many ways, to start from scratch. I did it with truth, and a simple, compelling execution of such. Where they go now, is simply up to them. 

I've been told my personal branding is spot on:-)

My best to those who welcomed me into their professional home for the afternoon:-) For more on corporate applications of iTOMB, please contact me.

Now Anyone Can Sit Outside My Box and Think Outside Their Box

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Beginning last month, I Think Outside My Box (iTOMB) has gone Interactive - enabling anyone to sit outside my box and think outside their box, painting their thought of the moment. Given that each person works with exactly the same materials, paint and a 3"X3" piece of cardboard, I find it enlightening just how different each person's interpretation is. What makes up your box and how do you think outside of it?

Announcing the "I think Outside My Box" soft launch blog

As a way to document the painting work I've accomplished at Occupy Wall Street to date as well as to aid Homeland Security in surveilling that curious man in the box, I'm launching the I Think Outside My Box blog. Please take a gander in its prelaunch state and make sure to subscribe to updates. Warhol rolls onto his stomach as the work presented at iTOMB continues to conquer Union Square and Gotham at large. Next week, Philly. Scary.

Emergency Relief: Thank You Mary

Liquid Tide laundry detergent splatters into the puddle as the rain splashes down around the prancing homeless man, Jack, - his soggy shoes and clothing full of suds in scrubbing his hair and singing to the Occupiers under the awning of the Union Square subway. This is normal. But he is happy, if not a little warped in spirit. Sunday's New York Times had led with a story and photo of the blind Chinese dissident, Chen Guangcheng, arriving in Greenwich Village whilst coverage of the thousands of American dissidents who had descended on Chicago to protest the NATO summit went unnoticed by the mainstream media in a New York weekend that revealed sunshine, a 30 million dollar NYPD overtime expenditure for Occupy Wall Street, and the introduction of Robert Lederman, the artist/activist who was arrested over 40 times in NYC for display and sale of his art - living to not only beat all 40 charges, but to free city artists from needing permits or licenses to exercise their first amendment rights on public property in the city. This too is normal as the dichotomies of American civil liberties scale further to illuminate that the United States is a gargantuan quagmire of constitutional promise, police harassment and personal physical defense of our own rights in our own country on a daily basis.

And Mary sends me $250. Thank you Mary, because at the rate the government and financial concerns are taking Americans to the cleaners, we'll all need $250 every time an illegal summons is issued to citizens exercising their rights - like myself. Just two weeks after being arrested and having all my art and supplies confiscated by the NYPD, I lost the first round of my summons case for 'unlawful' vending claiming I was a protester and not a vendor, but unaware that the law had been made so specific so as to classify anyone who took money of any kind to be a vendor. I will appeal, but for now, the summons fine of $250 stands - so I went absolutely nowhere in now counting 3 weeks of police harassment. For the time being, Goliath wins.

Thank you America for continuing to encourage me to acquire meaningful work and contribute to society. What I have learned so far is that it would be much safer to work in a bank than to protest their slovenly business practices, because the way the law works currently, Occupy activists go to jail whilst thieving bankers get to stay out and have their businesses bailed out. So much for doing the right thing. 

Mary and I have not seen each other for maybe 10 years. She and I had worked in Korea in the advertising business, although never directly together. What we shared most professionally was the organization of a quarterly business diner call "Edmen" ('Admen' mistakenly spelled by a Korean hotel employee) that regularly brought together the far fewer than 20 senior professionals who worked together in Seoul at the turn of the millennium. It was fun. It was professional. It was hosted in a country where the police don't carry guns. We were allowed to smoke indoors. I miss that.

Meanwhile, the class war continues in America, even inside the Occupy movement. I had heard someone over the weekend describe the reason our media groups wanted the office in Brooklyn instead of Manhattan was that they "didn't want the homeless people showing up at the office". The homeless people. The people with which the Occupy movement was able to maintain a 24/7 standing army in a city park - thus bringing in nearly a million dollars in the fall of 2011- the people, or should we say soldiers, that gave the movement meaning, physical mass and millions upon millions of dollars of TV coverage so that the word Occupy could enter the global lexicon as a modern day battle cry against the greedy, the criminal and the immoral who seem to be driving way too much of the bus these days. The people, as in 'We the people' - but for many meaning, 'We the homeless people', as the number of Americans who do not make enough money to pay rent continues to increase. The people even Occupy doesn't want anymore. Sadly.

Today I've spent hours reading city law in regard to artists displaying their work in city public spaces. Sometimes it's amazing to bury oneself in good ole' American law to see how few real rights and liberties we really do have. But in Robert Lederman, at least artists have found a champion. Through his sixteen years of artistic activism he has not only made it possible for artists to display and sell their works in the city without permit or license, but even gone so far as to make it possible for you, yes you, to protest on the steps of the capital building in Washington D. C. without a permit. "Hmm. It's a protest against us", the government used to be able to say, "Permit denied!" But no longer. At the close of this post I'll return mail to Robert Lederman on my 3 open cases regarding police harassment and blatant disregard for our first amendment rights - to see how I can beat these things. It is indeed good to know I'm not going into these battles alone. Thank you Mary, and Robert and all who follow and support me. I've been complimented recently for being of extraordinarily good mood and character considering the real severity of many of my circumstances and I am lucky - I chalk a lot of that up to proper prioritization. So long as I can put my creatives muscles to work everyday, that goes a long way to keeping me happy - only after that can I work on making sure I make a proper living out of it. Living art.