News  |  Author: adlubow

Year after year, I’ve been plagued by beetles that feed insatiably on my potato field. Not this season. Rather than clear cut, I left patches of grass grow among the seedlings. The grass soon morphed into a muti-colored interlacing of foxgloves — alluring, seductive and quite poisonous. To my delight, the foxgloves drove the beetles away.

I hadn’t attempted to relocate the foxgloves into my enterprise. (If I had, they surely would have been uncooperative and died.) I hadn’t poisoned the garden with pesticides. Instead, I let nature patch in its own corrective code.

What’s the business metaphor? Give every member of your organization space. Let it all happen. Then take note. From the Beatles to the beetles: there will be an answer; let it be.

We’ve long been interested in the idea of multimedia books. We see great potential for clients in health care, education and the arts to tell a richer story or teach a more inspiring course, with text, music and video combined.

Here’s a nice example of a children’s book we created that explores the value of pretending. It’s a bedtime story that also sings. See “Don’t Worry! I’m Just Pretending” on the iTunes iBookstore.

“This is such a special, fanciful, beautiful book bound to be a classic.”
— Christen Pollock, President & CEO, edBridge Partners

In an act of institutional courage and creative disruption the College Board announced its plans to redesign the SAT to be more open, relevant and more encouraging of excellence in classwork. The redesigned SAT will ask students to go deeper and be more analytic. It will reward diligence in school work over test preparation. It will focus on our literary and historical heritage. And, in the words of Tim Shanahan of the University of Illinois at Chicago, “The redesigned SAT will have an impact on what it is the teachers do with students in middle school and high school. Instead of aiming at some skills that might be predictive of college success, they’ll actually be aiming themselves at the skills that really do matter in college.”

Music Teacher Teresa Reed of the University of Tulsa School of Music tells us: “The redesigned SAT, by providing the kind of skills that do have meaning, that do have relevance — will have impact not just for college success, but for life success.”

You can hear and see remarks from leading educators around the country in a series of videos proudly produced by AD Lubow.

The press has given David Coleman and the Redesigned SAT much attention. See a telling New York Times article on the story behind the SAT Overhaul.

Sometimes you can say everything that needs to be said without words. Check out this wonderful new piece for the Marymount Manhattan College Fine & Performing Arts Division, featuring a great original soundtrack, impeccable editing and terrific camerawork. It has become a YouTube hit right off the bat.

Dear Congress, As a U.S. citizen who believes fervently in moderation, I implore you (for the good of the country as well as your own political future) to send your best staffers to the Master of Science in Negotiation and Conflict Resolution Program at the Columbia University School of Continuing Education. It’s a win-win.

Respectfully requested,
Arthur Lubow
President AD Lubow, LLC

Master of Science in Negotiation and Conflict Resolution Program at the Columbia University School of Continuing Education

Have a look at our MacArthur Foundation short form video on strengthening American democracy. And please share.

Sacred Honor or Sacred Fortune?
The Declaration of Independence signs off with these poignant words: “And for the support of this Declaration, with a firm reliance on the protection of divine Providence, we mutually pledge to each other our Lives, our Fortunes and our sacred Honor.”

Looking and listening to our leaders over the course of recent history, one sometimes wonders whether our ethos has morphed from “sacred honor” to “sacred fortune.” This piece asks people to examine the place of honor and fortune in our democracy, encouraging them to draw their own conclusions. This video is one of our agency’s many contributions to the field of social impact marketing.

Social media is a rags to riches tale told in many parts. At least, that’s what it was in the 1830s when Charles Dickens, writing in weekly installments, pioneered the serialization of creative content. As both an author and a social critic, Dickens drew on this model to share his ideas on social reform with a wider audience—as each successive chapter was shared around tavern tables and in parlor rooms by a rapt and increasingly ravenous readership.

Like Dickens, AD Lubow.com strives to create serialized social media that moves people. Together, their team of copywriters, designers, and creative thinkers find ways to reflect the diversity and dynamism of the agency’s distinguished roster of clients: telling stories of who the client is and what the client does and then releasing those stories in chapters that build a loyal following.

It’s a strategy that’s one part information, one part inspiration; a fusion of the practical and the provocative. Serialized social media should engage the audience; enveloping them in a series of stories into which they wish to delve deeper into an array of multimedia sources. Whether it’s creating e-books, an innovative membership drive, or a series of videos tackling education reform, AD Lubow believes popular media should deliver stories that spur us forward to action and awareness. They like to think of it as New Media: Classic.

Have a look at the work and the best practices behind them: adlubow.com/roadshow.

We think advertising’s future is in creating honest and informative videos. Look for a world where ad copywriters behave more like journalists. And where news organizations behave a little more like new-fashioned gray-flannel suits. To that end, read about qz.com.

qz.com is a mobile device driven brand of journalism for the “front of the airplane” crowd. It’s also an honest new form of reporting unafraid of what it or its advertisers have to say.

Look at the news coverage. It’s rooted in “a set of defining obsessions: core topics and knotty questions of seismic importance to business professionals. These are the issues that energize our newsroom, and we invite you to obsess about them along with us.” It works. After all, if writers aren’t insanely focused on wrapping their stories around one zeitgeist or another, how can readers be expected to work up a sweat?

Look at the ads and integrated sponsor content on qz.com: no hype, just stories in text and video of compelling interest to business leaders and investors. Should readers be interested in a behind-the-scenes view of the making of the latest Credit Suisse ad campaign? I, for one, am. Would frequent flyers, conservationists, and master planners want to know how Boeing is manufacturing lighter weight, stronger, more fuel-efficient airplanes? They should be walking on air to be privy to this kind of information. Is it happenstance that affluent car drivers want to know Cadillac is building smarter cars that can avoid fender benders? Nope. No accident at all.

At AD Lubow, we’ve been producing the interactive video ad consoles you see on qz.com.

In a recent column about the state of education in America, Tom Friedman wrote:

“Race to the Top said to all 50 states, we have a $4.35 billion fund that Washington will invest in the states that come up with the best four-year education reform plans that have these components: 1) systems for data-gathering on student performance, dropout rates, graduation rates and post-graduation college and vocational school success, so schools are held accountable for what happens to their students; 2) systems for teacher and principal evaluation and support, as well as systems to reward great teachers, learn from their best practices and move out those at the bottom — essentially systems that help elevate teaching into an attractive profession; 3) systems that propose turning around failing schools by changing the management and culture; 4) systems that set college- and career-ready, internationally benchmarked standards for reading and math.”

After far-reaching research and planning, the College Board and the National Association of Secondary School Principals (NASSP) have jointly launched Leading Success, an independent web toolkit for educators bound to become a major impetus to all of the above reforms. (And it’s safe to say it cost a lot less that $4.35 billion.)

When the College Board and the NASSP got together to create the site, they decided to tell the story of eleven high school principals who, against all odds, had either turned a failing school around or successfully created new one. The site showcases these principals’ best practices in a combination of short video profiles, tailored group activities, and practical, applicable research. For a change, the so-called underprivileged schools are being given a chance to prove that if troubled schools can succeed, perhaps everyone else should pay attention and learn from them.

So, what’s the best way to use and analyze data? Simple: ask students and teachers to become stakeholders in the process by collecting and analyzing it for themselves. The result: data becomes a reward, not a punishment. Enlightened principals win the trust of teachers. As one teacher put it: “In our school, if you get in trouble, you don’t hide. You get help.”

It’s the data that shows the way to improvement, through student exit tickets, student-run self-help conferences, data-driven peer development and so much more. After all, only after you have measured and quantified a school problem or need can you decide what path to take. And when a school gets on the right course, it’s on its way to creating a culture of learning—not just for students, but for teachers, parents and administrators as well. And all this learning leads to discovery—where hidden pools of talent are revealed and developed to everyone’s advantage.

What is AD Lubow’s interest in all of this? As a leader in short-form Internet video content for social change and public good, we were chosen by the College Board and NASSP to travel the country for nearly a year filming these schools for Leading Success. We hope the nation’s educators will learn as much as we did, and go on to teach even more. Tom Friedman should take note—the upward spiral begins here.

If you have an iPad, please take the time to download “NEW MEDIA. CLASSIC.” our new multimedia book on the iBookstore. Then imagine the book or courseware multi-media study guide we could design for you.

Interested? Please e-mail [email protected]