As Alex mentioned in a previous post, as any good academy would have you do, Hyper Island asked that we submit 3 big ideas that really made us think. Thought I’d share what get’s my gears turning:

1a. The Tap Project

My goal in LIFE is doing something as brilliant as this – just watch. WOW.
1b. (Product)RED

A fantastically inspiring big idea for so many reasons. It’s generated massive amounts of awareness for HIV/AIDS and works to reduce its stigma by spanning brands, products and markets (and really prominent and universal brands at that – Apple, Starbucks, Hallmark, GAP, Armani…). By unifying so many products that people already have in their hands (iPod), on their back (GAP t-shirts), under their feet (Converse) in the same mission for the same cause, you force the world to broach the subject (and even more helpful, to fund and support the global fight against AIDS). The fact that it’s blurred the line between corporate social responsibly and personal social responsibility is also a really interesting dynamic.

2. iPod

I know this one seems really cliché, but the iPod is the epitome of a ‘big idea’, as not only did it just create a new product with the MP3 player, it completely revolutionised the source of its very existence – the entire music and entertainment industry. Artists no longer need to sell a CD, they need to produce one track that gets bought through iTunes about a million times over. Every radio DJ, TV personality, health guru, master chef out there – forget your all too comfortable 30-minute radio/TV spot; you all better be producing podcasts with some serious punctuality. iTunes, Nike+, Bose docks, iPhone, silicon covers, iPod seat connections on Emirates! You name it, the iPod opened the door and ushered in their entrance.

3. Nike Human Race

I was in Austin, Texas on 31 August 2008 and Congress Avenue actually looked like this. Everything about that first Nike Human Race blew my mind and I kept falling in love with Nike over and over and over again. The brilliant part for me was how the event created a very real, tangible community not only in each of the 25 cities it was held, but across the whole world. I remember at the last Nike sponsored training session (it wasn’t my love for running that continually got me to the trainings, it was the fact that each trial run ended at a local dive complete with bombastic burritos and several complementary rounds of the ‘national’ beer of Texas) the Nike city leaders were updating us on how many people were now registered in Chicago…what the average 10K time was looking like for NYC…how we only needed 300 more entrants to blow LA out of the park. I truly did feel that come 5pm on August 31, all of America, all of the world, would be running with me.

Other highlights of the event and it’s 8 week build up in each of the cities, were having the ability to test out new Nike shoes and trial the Nike+ during practice runs, scoring sweet free Nike gear left and right, ending race day with a free concert by some huge acts, and setting up groups of running / walking buddies (forever making Nike the catalyst that brought together these resulting individual communities who continued to train long after the race was run). For the die-hard, it reignited the passion for the sport, but it also made running and racing much more accessible to those that perhaps got into the movement for a much more social / pop culture reason (cue me, chowing on my free burritos in my cool, new Nike threads, watching Ben Harper with my new-found running buddies!).