Scratch launched a blog today.  I hope you like it.  Click here for my welcome letter, then check out the buffet of awesomeness posted by Scratchers.  We're just getting started…

I promised myself I would write down, at some point, what it felt like to sit in the crowd at the Detroit Auto Show and watch General Motors take its first huge (public) steps towards Millennials.

This isn't that post in a cogent form, but I can't help sharing how proud I am of my team for its groundbreaking work.  The results speak for themselves.  So much is happening so fast, I hope by putting a snaptshot down here I might remember what it felt like.  That simple. 

There, on the big blue stage, was GM's North American President, Mark Reuss, followed by Global Youth Marketing Head, John McFarland — our friends, partners and clients – explaining how the automaker's work with Scratch has informed design, engineering and marketing decisions across the company.

And there was Anne Hubert, who runs our consulting practice, up on the huge screen, championing the very generation that is right now transforming the auto industry, forever.

When I turned around to see if anyone was actually paying attention, this is what I saw:

Baller!  And my stupid bberry cam could only capture a fraction of the global press barrage.

Throughout the day, like a feed, friends and colleagues sent us links to all the press mentioning our work with GM, many with lines like GM gets help from MTV to woo millennials; GM built the concepts after interviewing high schoolers, college students and young professionals, with the help of MTV’s Scratch division, which targets millennials; and The design was done with the aid of MTV Scratch.

Here are but a few:

• “Mark Reuss building success at GM North America” (Detroit Free Press) 
• “Auto Makers' New Reality: Cars Aren't a Must for Kids” (Wall Street Journal)
• “2 sporty Chevy concepts reveal young-buyer strategy” (Detroit Free Press)
• “Chevrolet Tru 140S concept previews Cruze coupe” (Car Advice)
• “Detroit Big Three pull out all the stops” (Financial Post)

What's more, a slew of mainstream and auto media picked up on the dramatic shift in GM's approach, and celebrated it with headlines like:

• “GM knows that striking a chord with the youngest generation of new-car shoppers—the under-30 crowd, or Millennials—is imperative for the brand’s future growth.”
• “Chevrolet MyLink democratizes infotainment, coming to 2013 Sonic and Spark”
• “Chevy aims for millennial market with two concepts”
• “Chevrolet aims 2 concept cars at Millennials”
• “General Motors takes aim at first-time vehicle buyers”
• “Chevy's latest concepts — crafted by the kids” 

Yes, we're just getting started.  But I remember when Carlo DiMarco told me in an elevator once how sad it is that we don't take a moment to enjoy the moments.  Carlo, you were right.  Tonight I'm sitting here with a bottle of wine and a pile of insights on a generation I'm in love with.  Taking a moment to let at least some of this seep in.

And it seems like we're all having fun there.  Just started mine HERE.

Didn't mean to time my post about "The Future of Swearing" this well, but let's go with it.  Last night's much-anticipated Modern Family featured little Lily, just 2 years old, appearing to curse.  ABC bleeped out the word, which wasn't "fuck," it was "fudge." 

Media shitstorms commenced.  Ratings, we'll see today, jumped.  And, as always, a new academic voice emerged to tell us why this might all be a good sign for our species.

Can we celebrate the awesomeness of mainstream media, for a second?  Two outstandingly funny angles:

First, propped up by Yahoo!, Timothy Jay, a professor at Massachusetts College of Liberal Arts, actually argues that swearing is evidence of our evolution: "A lot of people don't realize that swearing represents an evolutionary leap, in that it allows us to be verbally aggressive without being physically aggressive," Jay said.  Yikes, Dr. Jay.

Next, the Associated Press managed to dig up 17 year-old McKay Hatch (awesome name!), who founded an "Anti-Cussing Club" in 2007 (when he was 14!). “Our main goal is to stop this from happening,” said Hatch. “If we don’t, at least ABC knows that people all over the world don’t want to have a 2-year-old saying the ‘F-bomb’ on TV.” Pure genius.

Lastly, in a sign of the intelligent design of the universe, just last week, the Supreme Court took up the issue of profanity on network TV. Good God.

Without further ado, here are the pirated clips of last night's Modern Family scenes in question:

Clip 1

Clip 2

Clip 3 (the best)

The future of this shit might be closer than we fuckin' think, bitches.

We spend an awful lot of time thinking about the future of technology, media, consumption.  But the future of language isn't something I'd given much thought to since grad school. 

Then I read two posts in Communications Futures, potential scenarios on the future of swearing, in which Rex Troumbley foresees some fascinating outcomes, and now I find myself thinking about the socioeconomic and geopolitical forces acting upon language.  And how that's gonna change shit, I believe, sooner than we think.

You can tell Rex had a blast with these: "The only disclaimer I’ll include is that the scenarios are not for the faint of heart or the easily offended…and that they were a hell of a lot of fun to write."

Scenario 1

(December 28, 2011 in Communications Futures)

Scenario 2

If you managed to get through the first scenario, here’s the second which represents a future where regulation and control of language, proper and improper, has been the dominant trend for the last 50 years.