Press conferences going Japanese

Following the shoe incident with Bush in Iraq, press conference organizers are thinking of instituting new rules and manners. All participants will be asked to take their shoes off and wear paper-thin slippers. The measure is expected to improve the hygiene and ambience of the press room and make everyone relax and feel more comfortable.

Initially the idea was to ask participants to tie their shoes and hang them on power lines and phone wires outside the venue to give it western-style semantics but the fear this could be interpreted as a gangs-in-town sign or a drug dealer's marking made everyone revise and adopt symbolism-neutral Japanese manners on room hygiene.

I guess the most symbolic and heard-out-loud kind of peaceful protest to a future Bush-style US president, might be to hang shoes from power lines and telephone poles everywhere in town so that the message is visible from everywhere no matter what route the presidential motorcade will take to get in and out of town. It will be a spectacle to remember and the number of shoes hanging in protest a new Guinness world record countries will compete in!

http://www.thinkaloo.com

how can we wrap a digital present?

isn't it fun to unwrap presents? it adds to the excitement, doesn't it? how can we replicate the experience when it comes to a digital present purchased online and sent via an email link to download? wouldn't it mean more sales if we could somehow produce the effect? one way is to show an animation and replicate the sound of paper torn while the file is downloading. that leaves the hands bare. why do we like unwrapping presents? it's the mystery of not knowing what's inside. or the care that's been taken to present the item as a present. in the latter case it's a symbol that triggers an emotion. how do we come up with that symbol in a digital product offered online?

perhaps watching a video in virtual reality of the gift giver searching for the present, finding it and wrapping it? or a video showing us unwrapping the present which has been rendered to look like it has physical form? does wrapping translate as presentation in the online world? i don't know. can you think of something to suggest?

http://www.thinkaloo.com