vox populi anyone?

The 2012 London Olympics Logo is generating a lot of controversy. Check out some of the reactions, also here & here, apparently the logo also induces eplipsy!!!

The logo is basically a stylized graffiti like rendition of '2012', yet it generates some pretty strong reactions for something so inoccuous...
But why am I talking of the olympic logo in a blog about Ruveka and it's products (skrbl, tweebo & graffiti)... well I connect those dots as you read on(shameless plugger strikes again! :).

Here are the ironies I see in this story
The olympic committee wanted to connect with the 'young, edgy' crowd so they went to a graphic design company.
A design agency, got paid $800,000 to come up with this 'graffiti'. I bet they even had 'focus groups'.
The anti logo movement is currently in hyperdrive, letters to editors, online petitions, the works...
News outlets jumping on the anti logo band wagon are launching individual 'design your own logo' competitions presumably to come up with a logo of the people from the people.

Apparently nobody quite gets it.

If the olympic committee wanted to connect with 'the people', why contract with professional middle men?
Individuals submit logos to newspapers, then what? A vote? How unoriginal.
Here's an idea, put a blank slate in front of 'the people', let us create what we like, let us change what we don't. Watch us vote with our erasers, pencils & brushes. If you have to have professional artists, sure, but consider the artists' work a first draft, and let us at it with our pencils, erasers et al.
The end product will be all the better from our input. In any case it will be something other than just another corporate brand with a short shelf life. It will be something we made, & we will love it all the more for that reason. We will own it, you may the one collecting the royalties, nevertheless, we will own it.

Anyone have Sebastian Coe's email?

Massaging the Medium

Heard of Graffiti from skrbl? A community whiteboard for your community. Basically a blank space you embed in your site, where your users can draw, write & basically create their own content.

This is a big deal, think of it from users' perspective, its an opportunity to talk back, to express an idle thought, or share a random whimsy. This is a community graffiti board, where all users independently create but in the same shared space. It is a new kind of shared community interactivity, and as it extends the medium it changes the game.

Enter the 'Brave new World' where your site does not remain wholly yours, your users take joint ownership. There is atleast that bit of your domain that takes on a life of its own, growing organically, adding color & surprise. Reflecting the wisdom of the masses or the chaotic babble of the multitude but in either case a real thing that you do not fully control.

Try it out, get a graffiti board from skrbl and let the mob rule.
If the medium is the message, massage it a little and see what happens...