Millennials are lapping the rest of us, and they’re transforming our cars as they pass. From design to performance, infotainment to fractional ownership, the largest generational cohort in American history is engineering the changes it can’t wait for anymore.
Via PSFK, here’s a project that challenged college students to reimagine the backseat entertainment experience of GM cars. Remember, these are the very kids who grew up in the back seat, bored and waiting for us to make it more fun.
If you’re awake in Westchester tomorow morning at the ungodly hour of 7am, come for the “Business Breakfast” series at Concordia College. I’ll be there. Here’s the last slide I’ll present. Here’s the first one:
(image credit: Hugh MacLoed)
Today I got to hang out with a new hero of mine, Jamie Tworkowski.
You know Jamie, right? He founded TO WRITE LOVE ON HER ARMS, a non-profit movement “dedicated to presenting hope and finding help for people struggling with depression, addiction, self-injury and suicide. TWLOHA exists to encourage, inform, inspire and also to invest directly into treatment and recovery.”
Not sure I know anybody as effective as Jamie who is still so, like, nice. My new goal for 2010 is to be as nice as Jamie for at least ten minutes a day.
We’ve worked with Jamie a bit — he participated in the Half of Us campaign and was recently awarded a Woodie Award by college kids, presented by will.i.am, for his work with TWLOHA (beating John Legend, Alicia Keys, Wyclef and Kenna).
But today we hung out for the first time, and I got to get a better sense of this guy I’ve been hearing so much about from friends. It’s remarkable how humble Jamie is. Here’s a guy who is funding his hugely impactful non-profit with the sale of t-shirts. Yep, t-shirts. I got one today. I’m buying many more after I type this.
Jamie first started selling the t-shirts locally, in Florida, to raise money for a friend’s treatment for drug addiction. Then Switchfoot, Anberlin, Amy Lee from Evanescence, Hayley Williams from Paramore and other artists all began wearing his shirts on stage at shows. It took off from there.
I’m supporting TWLOHA’s new initiative, IMAlive, a peer-to-peer online crisis network that will provide real-time online crisis support to millions of people and will be the first 100 percent certified and trained staff and volunteer crisis line. Users will be able to talk one on one to responders through the IMAlive’s instant messaging program.
TWLOHA has an event coming up in Orlando, January 9th, called HEAVY & LIGHT. Matt Kearney is headlining. If you’ve never seen Matt, you should check him out. And Jamie puts together a great show. Here’s how Jamie opened this year’s
Finally I can post this. Been waiting all day so other blogs could trump me. We just announced the nominees for the 6th annual mtvU Woodie Awards, as chosen by college students nationwide. It’s the best college music of the yea, and it’s an incredible (and incredibly diverse) list of nominees this year.
Over the next few weeks, millions will vote to decide who goes home with a chunk of wood on November 18th at Roseland Ballroom in NYC.
Here’s how our good friend Asher Roth kicked off the sick party last year…
Past performers include Beck, TV On The Radio, Gym Class Heroes, Lykke Li, Santigold, Death Cab For Cutie, Imogen Heap, Matisyahu, Saul WIlliams, Q-Tip, The Academy Is, Asher Roth, Cool Kids, Rilo Kiley and more. I’ll let you know who’s performing this year…soon.
Nick Andrews is a student filmmaker at Montana State. Here’s what Nick looks like:
I first saw Nick’s work when he starting posting films in mtvU’s BEST FILM ON CAMPUS (aka BFOC), an incubator for college student filmmakers. Best Film On Campus is wall to wall with amazing young writers and directors. When they start blowing up in here, we hook them up with series deals, feature film development deals, music video productions, etc.
Here are some great examples of music videos made by college kids via BFOC…
Antonio Campos’ (NYU) music video for The Shins
Lauren Simpson’s (Texas A&M) music video for Motion City Soundtrack
Joe Stakum’s (Temple University) music video for Modest Mouse
All 3 of these videos went to the national college top ten from the moment they premiered.
Anyway, Nick posted his film “MY HANDS ARE BANANAS,” which is one of those shorts that’s so hilarious and original, you have no choice but to send it all your friends. I even sent it to my mom. Then we signed Nick up to star in a short-form series mtvU did with Ford, called the mtvU College 500. He was brilliant in it.
MY HANDS ARE BANANAS didn’t just do well…it blew up. Now 6MM people have watched this sucker. Here it is on youtube:
And it’s provoked some pretty great tributes and responses. Like this one, using machinima via Halo 2:
Girls tried it:
And then there’s this girl, who made her parents proud:
Check out this totally a Capella version…
Would love to work more with Nick Andrews, and I know I’m not alone in that. And I can’t wait to see what new talent we discover next in BFOC.
Our promos team made this great spot for our “Indebted” campaign. The project is a partnership with the Peter G. Peterson Foundation, aimed at arming young people with a better understanding of the fiscal crisis, how to protect themselves, and how to hold their elected representatives accountable for responsible spending.
We’ve been working with Pete Peterson, Dave Walker and the amazing Elizabeth Wilner (who just left to run ServiceNation). The team at mtvU is doing an incredible job on this campaign, from programming, online, on-ground events on college campuses, music (thank you, Asher Roth), research, press… Really proud of this.
