“Take a day to remember the day that changed us forever.” Together We Honor The Memory of 9/11.

“May the lives remembered, the deeds recognized, and the spirit reawakened be eternal beacons, which reaffirm respect for life, strengthen our resolve to preserve freedom, and inspire an end to hatred, ignorance and intolerance.”



These words are the final part of the mission statement of the National September 11 Memorial & Museum at the World Trade Center in New York City. As the nation and world mark the 12th anniversary of the 9/11 attacks, If It's Hip, It's Here shares the sentiments of the 9/11 Memorial and calls upon readers to make Sept. 11, 2013 a day of commemoration.


above image by twitter user @bjornverhoeff from Holland

Take a moment on this day to remember and honor the thousands of innocent men, women, and children murdered by terrorists in the horrific attacks of February 26, 1993 and September 11, 2001. Thank your local first responders for their dedication to protecting your community. Remember the many Americans who have served and are currently serving in our nation's military— many of whom enlisted as a response to the 9/11 attacks.



A new campaign honoring the memory of the 9/11 tragedy which occurred 12 years ago today has been created by BBDO New York. The campaign, which asks you to “Take a day to remember the day that changed us forever.”, consists of videos, print, digital ads and a presence on Facebook, (where you can download the special memorial cover image shown below for your page), Pinterest, Google+, Twitter and YouTube.


above: the downloadable Facebook cover page can be found here

Actor and New Yorker Robert De Niro narrates the following two video clips which are to be shown on screens in Times Square and stadiums like Citi Field as well as on ESPN and WABC-TV. Mr. De Niro declares: “On that day, a nation became a family. With nearly 3,000 loved ones lost. On that day, after witnessing the worst, we embodied the best. On that day, we came together. We were all New Yorkers.”



In the following video 911 Memorial board member Robert De Niro asks the world to take a day to remember the day that changed us forever. Text "HOPE" to 80088 to donate $10 to the National September 11 Memorial & Museum.



As Stuart Elliot reports for the New York Times, Lynn Rasic, executive vice president for external affairs at the National September 11 Memorial and Museum says “We decided with the 12th anniversary that we wanted a new campaign, a campaign that would look forward to the opening next spring.”

The campaign is meant to let people know that “wherever they are” on the anniversary “they can share in the commemoration,” she adds.

“As we get further out, we still have a collective responsibility to commemorate 9/11,” Ms. Rasic says. “Those who were alive and remember have a responsibility to teach.”

“One of our goals is to connect with a generation that’s growing up now that may have no firsthand knowledge of 9/11,” she says, adding: “That’s the core mission of the museum. We need to tell this next generation about the history of 9/11, the enormity of the loss and how we came together.”


above: this ad reads "Remember The Day Your City Became Your family" (image courtesy of NY Times)

That is reflecting in one of the print ads in the campaign, which depicts a young girl holding several flags. “Remember,” the headline reads, “and teach the ones too young to remember.”



The interest in reaching out to youth, says Michael Frazier, vice president for communications at the museum, is a reason “we work very hard to build out our social platforms.”

“Through our various social networks, we are not only engaging younger generations to participate,” he adds, “we are exposing them to a history that some are unaware of, providing context for a better understanding.”

The campaign is being financed by a combination of paid and donated media. The ads were created on a pro bono basis by BBDO New York, part of the BBDO North America division of BBDO Worldwide, owned by the Omnicom Group.

The National September 11 Memorial (9/11 Memorial) is a tribute of remembrance and honor to the nearly 3,000 people killed in the terror attacks of September 11, 2001 at the World Trade Center site, near Shanksville, Pa., and at the Pentagon, as well as the six people killed in the World Trade Center bombing on February 26 1993.

Please, do as the campaign asks and “Take a day to remember the day that changed us forever.”



God Bless America.

The official 9/11 memorial website

Games to Play While Lance Armstrong Lies, er Talks to Oprah: BingoSTRONG, Armstrong Bingo, A Doping Game and A Drinking Game.

Most every social bungle, depressing news item or fallen hero usually inspires some clever soul to create something humorous for the masses. To help stomach watching the Lance Armstrong Oprah two part interviews, there's a bunch of fun interactive games - and some products - circulating around the web.

Parody Silicone Bracelets:

above: you can buy the 'cheat to win' bracelet here at The Onion and/or the LiveWRONG bracelets here

BingoSTRONG and Armstrong Bingo, both play at home bingo games (you print out the hi-res boards I've included here), a doping game for those who keep steroids in their cupboards and of course, a drinking game. All mocking the once admired cycling legend Lance Armstrong while watching his interview with Oprah*.


click on the above image to download it at high-res

The game above now has rules, shown here:


Not the only Armstrong Bingo game out there. The Telegraph is offering this game board for you to play as well:



Join in the fun with the Lance Armstrong-Oprah Interview Doping Game:


And yes, of course, there's a drinking game, too.



*Oprah Winfrey's hotly anticipated, two-part interview with Lance Armstrong will air Thursday and Friday nights at 9 p.m. EST/PST on OWN, the Oprah Winfrey Network. For those without a cable subscription, "Oprah and Lance Armstrong: The Worldwide Exclusive" will also be streamed live at Oprah.com.

Kate Middleton's First Official Portrait Is Revealed To Mixed Reviews. Let's Take A Close Look.

The Duchess of Cambridge's official portrait commissioned by the National Portrait Gallery in London was unveiled today.


above: Artist Paul Emsley reveals Kate Middleton's Official portrait to the press in London

The oil painting, by South African-born artist Paul Emsley, was a result of two sittings and three and a half month's work (and painting from a photograph). A frontal image of the 31 year old Kate's head, the painting is being criticized globally for prematurely aging the wife of the The Prince of Wales.



Several art critics are pointing out the fact that the painting includes bags beneath her eyes, deep lines around her mouth, a pale pallor and gives the Duchess a large nose.

I took the liberty of composing a close up of the portrait against a recent photo of the Duchess, so you can compare for yourself:


In the side by side comparison above, it seems that the artist created a very competent likeness, only in reality, her eyes seem a tad larger, her actual nose is smaller and less rounded and she has far more red in her skin tone than the painting suggests. That said, in my personal opinion, some of the critics are correct.

The photo I used for comparison:


The artist says he altered the color of her eyes to match her blouse (a silk teal shirt with a bow at the neck) and background.



Kate is wearing the sapphire diamond earrings that were said to be fashioned from a pair of Diana's in the portrait.

Can you see the artist painted himself as a reflection in Kate's left eye?:


The Duchess of Cambridge, 31, said that she wanted "to be portrayed naturally — her natural self — as opposed to her official self," Emsley said in the New York Daily News.

Of course the Royals are claiming to be thrilled with the portait (ABC news reports that William called it "beautiful") , but reviews in newspapers and blogs are calling it everything from "rotten' to  'just plain ugly.'
What do you think?

How The World Searched in 2012 and A Little Analysis of Google Search Trends For The Past Five Years.

I recently saw a recut of this video for a television ad that I really loved and tried to find to share with you, but sadly, I could not locate the 60 second version of this (which I actually preferred to the original video), so I figured I may as well share the entire 2 minute and 46 second version with you:



Music: "All I Want" by Kodaline, Video production by Whirled Creative

Mark Lee from the blog Overthinking It did a little data analysis of his own regarding the past five years of Google's Zeitgeist (their year-end round up of search trends on Google) that I'd like to share with you. I've reprinted his findings, complete with his hypotheses and commentary below.

His first step was to compile the last 5 years of Google Zeitgeist Top 10 Trending Search Terms and assign each item to a category:


A few things to keep in mind regarding these lists:

• These are lists of top trending Google search terms, not highest volume Google search terms. Google defines “trending” as “search queries with the highest amount of traffic over a sustained period in 2012 as compared to 2011.” (Emphasis is his.) Hence the “flash-in-a-pan” nature of the more derided results like Rebecca Black and Chatroulette.

• These lists reflect worldwide Google activity. Remember that Google’s share of the web search market is not as dominating in some parts of the world as it is in the United States; China being the most notable example.

• He used his own taxonomy based on his intuitive understanding of the different phenomena presented in the results. For example, rather than lump both Whitney Houston and Rebecca Black into the “music” category, he put Whitney Houston and Steve Jobs together in the “celebrity death” category.

• Although Google Zeitgeist goes back to 2001, Lee only went back 5 years, partly because it’s a nice round number, partly because there was no year-end roundup for 2006, and partly because he wanted to limit the amount that changing search habits and demographics could skew the results.

Here’s what the data looks like when you aggregate across the years, by category:


All fine and good, but what we really want to see is if there are any changes in search interests over the past five years:



So what do we make of this? Here are a few possible takeaways according to Lee:

• TV and movies are surprisingly underrepresented. The sole TV entry in the Top 10 over five years is Big Brother Brazil 12, and the sole movie entry is Twilight: New Moon.This is consistent with the idea that our media landscape is more diverse and less mass-market than it was in the pre-internet age. That being said, I’m still surprised that not even Avatar made the list, perhaps due to the year-over-year comparison calculation that powers these results.

• Searches for various social media sites has steadily declined since 2008. Is it because people are using social media less? Far from it, if Facebook and Twitter’s statistics are to believed. Instead, it’s probably due to two things: 1) the growth of social media is slowing as Facebook approaches near-total saturation and 2) the growth of social media web searches is slowing as more people access them using smart phone apps instead of a web browser.

• Sports cracked the Top 10 only twice, both in Summer Olympics years (the Euro 2008 soccer tournament also made the list). Why less love for the Winter Olympics? It may have something to do with the lack of beach volleyball (and exposed skin in general). Just a wild guess.

• Celebrity deaths are a reliable source of spikes in Google search activity, but 2010 had no such searches make the top 10 list. He perused several awful slideshows of 2010 celebrity deaths (so you don’t have to), and reports with some confidence that no one of the iconic stature of Steve Jobs, Whitney Houston, or Michael Jackson left us in 2010. Not that iconic stature is the only requirement for making this list; Ryan Dunn of Jackass fame seems to have qualified based on the alignment of the circumstances of his death and his daredevil image.


To Lee, the biggest surprise in this exercise was the tailing off of social media searches. As a reminder, it’s not because the total volume is declining; it’s because the year-over-year growth in searches isn’t enough to get these terms into the top 10. Still, if his theories are right–that social media is approaching full saturation and that the usage of it is moving towards mobile devices–then we do have a finding that approaches the idea of a “zeitgeist” in the traditional sense of the term: “the defining spirit or mood of a particular period of history as shown by the ideas and beliefs of the time.” Social media–this potentially radical revolution in how humans interact with each other–not only became a “new normal” over the past five years, but is also undergoing a radical shift from the stationary computer screen to the mobile, always-on-you device. And if this radical reinvention of the radical reinvention isn’t reflective of the zeitgeist, Lee claims he doesn't know what is.

One last thought on the nature of Google Zeitgeist itself: Lee wondered if he was imbuing it with outsized importance by assuming that the Google Zeitgeist is more of a part of the popular imagination (the zeitgeist, if you will) than it actually is. To find out he asked none other than Google:

Over the last five years, Google Zeitgeist has remained a popular year-end search term, though not with any consistent growth or shrinkage in popularity:



That being said, it’s still dwarfed by other popular search terms like “iPad” or “Michael Jackson.” Even “lolcats,” a niche but once-hugely popular internet meme, has towered over Google Zeitgeist over the past 5 years:



Granted, the gap has narrowed recently as searches for “lolcats” has declined while “Google Zeitgeist’ remains more or less consistent, but the point should be clear: the Google Zeitgeist itself is far from a cultural juggernaut compared to the items it contains. It’s not surprising, but it does provide some needed perspective on the matter.

About Lee
Mark Lee is, depending on the day and the hour, a management consultant, a musician, a technologist, and one of the managing editors for Overthinking It. He is a devoted fan of the Terminator movies and Microsoft Excel. Follow him on Twitter: @goestotwelve.

Empire State Glows Blue As CNN Projects Re-election Of Barack Obama. Brand New Lighting Technology Courtesy Of Philips Color Kinetics.

above: CNN projects the re-election of Barack Obama as President of the United States and the Empire state building is lit up blue to reflect the electoral tally.

CNN joined forces this evening with the Empire State Building to display to New Yorkers, the network’s viewers in the United States (and around the world) the results of the presidential election. As each state was projected by CNN and electoral votes were allocated to the candidates, a vertical LED-illuminated “meter” located atop the spire of the building displayed CNN’s running tally of the race to 270.

This occasion marks the iconic Empire State Building’s first-ever use of their new custom LED panel technology, a state-of-the-art dynamic lighting system from Philips Color Kinetics that is unique to the Empire State Building and allows the building’s façade and mast to change lighting scenes in real-time. The four-sided tower, which sits atop the building more than a quarter of a mile from the streets of Manhattan, was illuminated in patriotic red, white and blue vertical stripes, while the mast was lit in blue and in red on two sides each to represent President Obama and Gov. Romney’s respective electoral vote totals:

CNN, exclusively shot footage from the rooftop of a neighboring building, and aired live images of the illuminated tower as the evening’s results progressed. Once CNN projected Barack Obama as the winner of the presidential election, the tower lights of the Empire State Building changed to all-blue:

above: Instagram photo by facelessnyer

The Empire State Building celebrates many cultures and causes in the world community with iconic lightings. Its tower lights recognize key milestones, events, charitable organizations, countries and holidays, a tradition started in 1932, when a simple searchlight was used to announce the election of New York-born Franklin Delano Roosevelt as President. To honor the United States Bicentennial, the Empire State Building installed colored floodlights to illuminate the building at night, lighting up red, white and blue, leading to today’s very popular Lighting Partner program.

Soaring 1,454 feet above Midtown Manhattan (from base to antenna), the Empire State Building is the “World’s Most Famous Office Building.” With new investments in infrastructure, public areas and amenities, the Empire State Building has attracted first-rate tenants in a diverse array of industries from around the world. The skyscraper’s robust broadcasting technology supports all major television and FM radio stations in the New York metropolitan market. The Empire State Building was named America’s favorite building in a poll conducted by the American Institute of Architects. The Empire State Building Observatory is one of the world’s most beloved attractions and is the region’s #1 tourist destination. For more information on the Empire State Building, please visit www.esbnyc.com, http://www.facebook.com/empirestatebuilding, or @EmpireStateBldg.

Tune in to CNN’s “Election Night in America” coverage beginning at 6 p.m. ET, or join the conversation on Twitter by following #CNNElection and @EmpireStateBldg.

CNN Worldwide, a division of Turner Broadcasting System, Inc., a Time Warner Company, is the most trusted source for news and information. Its reach extends to nine cable and satellite television networks; one private place-based network; two radio networks; wireless devices around the world; CNN Digital Network, the No. 1 network of news Web sites in the United States; CNN Newsource, the world’s most extensively syndicated news service; and strategic international partnerships within both television and the digital media.

The 2012 Winner and Visionary Award Finalists from London's Alternative Hair Show.

above: This year's winner of the Alternative Hair Visionary Award

2012 marks the 30th anniversary of Alternative Hair, during which time many of the world’s greatest hairdressers and hairdressing teams have appeared across the globe at Alternative Hair events in the UK, USA, Austria, Korea, Italy and Russia.

The 2012 Alternative Hair Show was held on Sunday 14th October, 30 years after the first Alternative Hair Show was held at London’s Camden Palace and adding funds to the £8.5 Million already raised in support of Leukaemia and Lymphoma Research.



The vision of Alternative Hair is to recognize and honor creative talent as well as recognizing the future stars of tomorrow. The Visionary Award, has developed from the original concept of Alternative Hair President Anthony Mascolo, and has become an increasingly popular addition to the show. Now an international competition, this year the Visionary Award semi-finals will be held at the World Championships in Milan.

Here's a look at the 2012 Visionary Award Winner and all the finalists. (to see images from the show's presentation, LEGENDS, go here)

This year's Winner Helen Reavey's work graces the cover of the October/November 2012 issue of Irish Hairdresser Magazine :

in the London show:



The 2012 Visionary Award Finalists in alphabetical order:

Anthony Kilcoyne, (3rd place of VA Ireland):


Ceri Cushen, UK:


Cristiano Leuzzi, Italy:


Emmanuel Esteban, UK:


Evequoz Francois, Switzerland:


Deiter Ferschinger, Austria:


Freda Rossidis, Australia:


Joe Yves-Asmar, Sweden:


Koczka, Hungary:


Lina Shamoun, Canada:


Mauro Santurro, Italy:


Michelle McDermott, 2nd place in VA Ireland):


Misha Cadkova, Czech Republic:


Olexander Gryshko, Ukraine:


Olga Provotorova, Russia:


Pawel Babicz, Poland:


Pino Troncone, Italy:


Robert Masciave, UK:


Roger Persson, Sweden:


Ruslana Moroz, Ukraine:


Tom Connell, UK:


Tony DeLiddo, Italy:


Why Alternative Hair exists:
In 1983 Tony and Maggie Rizzo lost their small son Valentino to Leukaemia. To keep the memory of Valentino alive and try and make a change: to improve the chances of a child surviving this terrible disease, Tony organised a ‘one off’ charity show. The immediate popularity of the Show meant he just had to do a show the following year and 30 years on the following within the hairdressing industry remains strong.

Alternative Hair Show links creativity with charity and is everlastingly dedicated to the hairdressers and to supporting the life saving work of Leukaemia and Lymphoma Research.

The Alternative Hair Shows have raised an astonishing £8.5 million thus far for Leukaemia & Lymphoma Research in the UK and for leukaemia charities worldwide.

This vital work continues with the establishment of The Alternative’s very own charity, The Alternative Hair Charitable Foundation.