Not sure how I stumbled upon the video below, but I'm happy that I did. If you've seen it on YouTube (and chances are you have, since its received almost 2 million views), you were probably surprised when, at the end of video, it became clear it was an ad for Pantene hair products. They ended the video with their logo and the phrase, "You can shine." Some people left comments about the video stating that while it was great, it had nothing to do with the product because the product itself never actually appeared in the piece. I disagree--it had everything to do with the product.

Pantene wants to tell you about their shampoo by talking "around" it and not "about it," thereby capturing your attention with an authentic message rather than a standard sales pitch or some other regurgitated advertising tactic. Is this just another way to tug at people's heartstrings and make them head straight for Pantene bottles in the shampoo aisle? Well, of course, but the ad also does something that I think is quite clever--it makes you feel inspired by showing you a person overcoming hardship.

The interesting thing about spots like this one for Pantene is that they possess a duality that could be characterized as a blend ofadvertising and also art. Pantene is getting you to think about larger, over-arching themes (overcoming obstacles, victory), much like a film, and draws a connection between those themes and their product.

But the folks at Pantene haven't forgotten to give hair a major role in the piece. The violin player's hair is referenced visually several times throughout the spot, as the young woman is passionately playing the violin, and then again at the end, when she plays for a large crowd with a mane of gleaming, sleek, straight hair.

The bottom line? If every time you see a Pantene bottle you think of overcoming obstacles and believing in yourself, isn't that a victory often more glorious than an ad that has the actual product in it for 10 seconds? I think so.

Check out the video for yourself below and let me know what you think.

Many of you have been asking when the song "Chain Reaction" (from the Grasshopper video I produced) will be available via multiple music sites. Well, some good news: it's finally available for purchase on iTunes (in addition to Amazon and other sites).

Carly Comando created this incredible track, and she was really a pleasure to work with--enthusiastic, poised, and responsive. She composed "Chain Reaction" based on the script I wrote and my sometimes annoyingly specific feedback about the sound I needed for the video. She ended up producing one of the most evocative tracks I've ever heard. It really completes the "Entrepreneurs Can Change the World" video.

Grab the track on iTunes today!

I posted this on Twitter earlier, but had to share here on my blog, too. Richard Darrell (@minervity on Twitter) has a great post on Bit Rebels with awesome videos that provide some insight into the process of designing a website from scratch. I posted one of the videos below. Thanks, Richard!

I don't normally write blog posts about work I've done for specific companies, but I've permission from the wonderful folks at Grasshopper (formerly GotVMail) to write about what they've done because I find it so inspiring.

On Monday, the company that was GotVMail launched a pretty bold campaign to re-brand themselves as Grasshopper. Change isn't always easy, but when there's a great idea behind it, it's a lot easier to galvanize support. That's the case with Grasshopper. While the company has always been a champion of entrepreneurs, the re-branding is all about inspiring entrepreneurs to change the world, and taking innovation to a whole new level. And we could all use some inspiration right now.

I was fortunate to be involved in several aspects of the re-branding but I'm really proud of one piece of work in particular: the company's inspirational video, "A Single Brilliant Idea." Producing and writing the video was amazing because I got to work with two incredibly talented individuals during production, one being Carly Comando, who created the original score. Carly is best known for writing the score for the Noah Kalina "Everyday" viral video and for music she's provided for the NBA's "Where Amazing Happens" campaign. Ben White was the motion designer on the project. I feel so grateful to have found Ben, because he understood what I was going for with the video, and he brought a lot of passion to the project. I feel fortunate to have collaborated with these two creative people.

UPDATE: Many people have been asking for the name of the track Carly created for the Grasshopper video. It's called "Chain Reaction" and it will be available for purchase on iTunes at the end of June or early July.

Without further ado, I'd like to share the video with you:

I'm guessing you've got to clear your calendar for a few days after writing all over your entire body (or maybe not, who knows?), but this is still a pretty cool video that I found through Twitter (@lisahickey and @iamkhayyam). Since it involves writing and also features one of my favorite songs by Fatboy Slim, "Right Here, Right Now," I thought I'd share.

"Happy Holidays, here are my medical records. Keep them safe, ok?"

Can't you just see it now? That look of joy on a loved one's face when you decide to let them in on your medical history, courtesy of Google Health? As of yesterday, all that joy is just sitting out there, waiting for you to grab it. That is, of course, with the launch of a new feature on Google Health, as TechCrunch reports, that allows you to send links to loved ones which grant them access to your medical records.

This new feature is just the tip of the iceberg for Google Health, which launched on May 19, 2008, with very little publicity. Google Health is easy to use, like many other Google tools. The website says you can "[o]rganize your health information in one place," and "[g]ather your medical records from doctors, hospitals, and pharmacies." If you didn't already have enough to do online, you can now manage your health records there, too. I wonder if there's a feature coming that would allow you to upload medical info onto your Facebook page? Hmm, now there's a thought!

If Google Health and this special new feature don't get you excited, let me just say: you're not alone. I will admit here, for the record--no pun intended--that I hate the idea of Google Health. It seems simple enough on the surface, but as we continue to add information to online services without really knowing where the content ends up (or, who "owns" it, as the recent Facebook fiasco brought to our attention), it gets very complex. How do we control where our info goes? What if the information ends up in the hands of people who use it to penalize you for not maintaining a certain weight, cholesterol level, or perhaps using too many physician resources? It sounds far-fetched now, but there isn't much to prevent that from happening in the future.

I know that most people don't think about these things, and if they do, it's not that big of a deal. After all, all of our information is out there already, many say. What's more, they point out, Google Health promises they'll never sell your info. One commenter on the TechCrunch article named "courtney benson" probably summed up this view of the situation best when she said,

"Google has more information on people because all those "free services" that they provide are collecting data...They know your credit card numbers, bank accounts, who you know, what you say, where you go, where you live, what you like, what you dislike, and on and on. That's why they are laughing all the way to the bank..."

It may be true that Google has all of this information anyway, but why add medical records to the host of information they've retained about you over the years (don't lie, you know your Google Picasa photo album is rife with incriminating photos)? We're not discussing something meaningless here, like a bunch of status updates on Twitter--it's your health, a sensitive topic.

At the very least, I think it would be wise to take a proactive approach to understanding Google's policies about health records. While they say they'll never "sell" them, what if they "give" them to another tool within Google, and your information is shared that way? It's time we really think about whether the benefits of the service outweigh the drawbacks.

What do you think of Google Health and sharing medical records online? Are our records easily accessible without this service even entering into the picture? Enlighten me.

Today I sat in on lectures at Princeton, MIT, and Yale. Oh, and how could I forget--there was that one about entrepreneurship at Stanford, too. So how did I criss-cross the country to sit in on some of the best classes? One simple answer: I was on Academic Earth, where you can watch videos of lectures from prestigious universities around the United States--for free.

Farhood Manjoo described Academic Earth the best when he said that it's essentially "Hulu for nerds," but you could also describe Academic Earth as YouTube for overachievers. Whatever you call it, the business, founded by Yale alum Richard Ludlow, allows the average person to learn about everything from game theory to American literature.

According to Manjoo's article on Slate, Ludlow hopes that by posting lectures he'll lower the cost of education around the world--even by running Academic Earth as a for-profit venture. He plans to add videos from think tanks and run advertising alongside it, but he won't run ads with any videos from educational institutions (as of right now).

I think Ludlow's concept is a great one, and like Manjoo, it seems more accessible than Google's Knol, since video from a classroom best approximates the experience we've all had listening to teachers over the years. Google Knol is great for random research, but Academic Earth provides a context for learning. Even though I like it a lot, I hope that Academic Earth isn't limited to just "big name" schools like Harvard, Yale, and MIT. There are tons of great professors out there doing interesting research, and they don't all teach at Ivy League institutions.

Academic Earth also seems really interesting because it finally scales the "ivory tower" and throws open the doors to the general public. It's really refreshing to see universities, especially Harvard, welcome the association with something so very modern, and web 2.0. It surprises me because it's been my experience that many academic and other institutions take a passive role when it comes to incorporating new media and technology into their plan for remaining relevant--it's only when they're faced with complete irrelevance that they make the foray into this sort of venture. I hope universities and other institutions remain open to the concept of collaborative learning.

Check out this great video about communication from Yale:

I recently succumbed to peer pressure and joined Twitter. Now you can be regaled with countless updates from me, Sonja, each day. Some of you might find this useful ("Look, there's a real person behind The Cultivated Word!") while others may not ("Why should I care what she thinks about Oscar Meyer's new ad campaign?"). The best thing is that the choice is yours--follow me on Twitter, or not.

In signing up for Twitter--which I firmly believe is an electronic, yet highly schizophrenic re-interpretation of high school--I realize that I'm opening the door to a torrent of judgment, both personal and professional, from all sorts of readers. I'm going to try to embrace that because I believe it will make me a better writer--somehow.

For those of you unfamiliar with Twitter, the basic premise is that you follow people's updates and ostensibly, people follow yours, too. When you sign up to "follow" someone on Twitter, they're notified by email. However, since Twitter has now gone from social media experiment to mainstream networking tool, following someone--anyone--can be interpreted as flattering, strategic, or both. "Following" someone gets you into a bit of trouble because the person being followed may think either 1) you care what they have to say or 2) you want to keep tabs on them.

"Following" someone on Twitter may have started out as a simple gesture, but in the ever-shrinking space of the internet, it can mean a lot more. So what if you want to get the benefits of following someone on Twitter--knowing what they're up to professionally, for example--without them knowing that you're following them? That's where TweetStalk comes in. The application allows you to follow someone on Twitter--and get all the "benefits" of that--without them knowing that you're following their every move. Freaky, huh? It's like that 80's song by Rockwell, "I always feel like somebody's watching me..." Nope, not good.

My take on it? TweetStalking is anti-social media. The whole point of sites like Twitter, Facebook, MySpace, et cetera, is to socialize. I admit, sometimes that form of electronic socialization is a giant, juvenile, time-suck, but hey, it's just one more facet of social media, so why not embrace it? Don't let the anti-social stalkers take the fun out of social media sites like Twitter.