We’ve created a heavy metal band called The Group of Death.

Inspired by the most hardcore group of the World Cup draw every four years and with the goal of entertaining football fans across the world. See the band’s one-sheet below for more info.

As most of you know, we’re constantly producing things with ESPN at W+KNY — for its sports properties (e.g., NBA on ESPN Shaqtus), shows (SportsCenter Duck) and media (ESPN.com Answers). Shit, I was going to say “I rarely share…” but instead I added links.

Anyway, the reason I wanted to post about the GoD is because it’s one of those ideas that usually get left behind for the main campaign, for the big stuff. Whether it’s too far removed from the ultimate objective (selling something), the immediate objective (need to focus everything on one main idea) or the more easily measured objective (ratings). Whether it seems too rushed to execute or too risky. Whether there’s just not enough money because producing 3 TV spots is the priority. Or whatever. An idea like this often never sees the light of day.

Props to ESPN for allowing us to bring The Group of Death to life. They had to be comfortable with the fact that this idea is not about promoting its coverage of the draw and is not meant for the sports fan masses. It’s about being present on the is the most important day for fans until the tournament starts on June 11, 2010 and doing something interesting/exciting/authentic for avid football fans.

Specifically, this idea is meant to capitalize on the fact that when the draw comes out, fans want to know two things: (1) where their team (or teams) are placed and (2) what teams are in the most difficult group – The Group of Death. It’s one of many ways we’ll be trying to build a relationship with sports fans leading up to the World Cup. And we got off to a good start yesterday when “The Gaffer” (no relation) unboxed us on EPL Talk.

Hope you enjoy it. Make sure to check out the songs on the music tab within the Facebook page (IMO it’s the best part). Come through Nevada Smiths around 5PM on Friday for the live concert. Leave a comment if you want me to save you/bring you/send you a t-shirt – I’ve got a few extras to give away.

Since Clay kicked it off by making a bad-ass video titled “How To Wireframe”, I figured I’d follow up with another “How To” post. Definitely got aggressive with the title, but creating a movement is the goal. Let’s begin at, well, the beginning.

The inspiration: Very simply, Barack Obama. I, like many of you, have been moved by our Democratic Presidential candidate. I credit him with building broad interest in politics. But more importantly (knowing that interest would have grown given dissatisfaction with Bush and our current economic crisis), I credit Barack with generating true enthusiasm about our future. I’m in Paul’s camp of believing in the power of the Hope message. We both understand it hasn’t been proven to stir people to action quite like fear. Even so, it took him through the primaries and continues to motivate many of us to do something…including me.

What’s great is a ton of people have take action—whether at the grassroots or national level, whether in the art community or celebrities or youth, whether working within his campaign or outside of it. Yet, ‘wanting to do something’ is where I’ve been for months, and I get the sense that I’ve not been alone. Until last week, September 24th, when I had an idea worth sharing:

I show you this screen grab from my GChat conversation with Clay for two reasons. First, because it’s always interesting (at least for me) to see ideas in their birthplace (i.e. napkins, sketch books, PowerPoint, etc.). Second, because sharing an idea makes it that much more likely to come to life. in this case, Clay and his Hustlewood team were the fire-starters, the catalysts for action. A special thanks to Kevin for the work he’s been doing here designing our above logo and soon-to-launch site.) Third, because sharing also makes your idea better from adding others’ thoughts or just clarifying your own. The next line in that convo was “let’s do barackbaton.com – with virtual baton to sign, hold design competition…” As you can see, the name has changed (initially called Barack Baton – those who know me know I love me some alliteration) and the idea has become more focused on real life interactions.

Getting the right people on board (especially people with skills/passions, other than writing which you can tell by the length of this email is the area I enjoy most) was key. Additionally, I’m getting some other parts in place such as:

1. Developing a voice for Obama Baton before and after the site launches. I’ve, unsurprisingly for those in the ad world, decided on Twitter. Had been looking into Yammer but have to stay where my people are.

2. Creating a face for Obama Baton and showing the faces of its supporters. For this, I’ve gone to Flickr. Take a peak at the logos, which we’ve made available to take, as well as some shots of my family with the baton. Which brings me to step 3.

3. Buying the physical batons. On a tight time-line, this was a bit harder than expected given I was looking for blue batons specifically that were not made of cheap plastic. After unsuccessful trips to Sports Authority, Modell’s, Paragon and Jack Rabbits in Manhattan, I finally found a couple nice aluminum ones at Super Runners Shop in Huntington, NY and was able to get them engraved at Things We Remember at Walt Whitman Mall.

4. Building a community for Obama Baton supporters and runners in New York on Facebook. Chicago coming very soon.

That’s that for the next hour at least. More to come as we run full speed forward. Hope you found that interesting. Now it’s your turn. Follow Obama Baton, Take Photos and tag them “obamabaton”, and/or Join the Obama Baton group. Or comment here.

Sharon is a friend I made in Israel (born and raised and now in the army there) when I went for Birthright trip. She’s one of those people I always admire/am slightly jealous of that has an amazing and magnetic energy around them; that you gravitate toward. So it’s wonderful that I’ve been able to stay in touch with her and other friends I made that trip through the Internet and Facebook, in particular, whose application enabled this thoughtful surprise.

Anyway, there’s my sensitive side after some immaturity and hip hop posting. Happy Jewish New Year to all.

“Unsubscribe from these notifications” – yeah right. Unfortunately I’m not a lady or I’d be waiting in line to Show My Moves to J. Lo right now. And not to brag, but I’ll be at her show tonight. So there.

Not just that, I like that they’re linking to 4 different places, which I’m assuming they’ll optimize based on metrics. (Made me think of Google’s ability to test different “faces”/starting screen images for the same video to see which were most effective in getting clicks, which I think is a great offering.)

So although I don’t subscribe to Showtime, I couldn’t help but click on those pretty little boxes to learn more. And I’m glad I did because Addicted to Weeds took me to this video (below) featuring my favorite dude, Jay, from 40 Year Old Virgin…who I guess is also on this show, which I’m one step closer to watching. Now that I think of it, Showtime probably knows that one show alone will not get most people to subscribe to the channel, so offering a link to Californication, Dexter, or Brotherhood is not just nice diversity or hedging their bet, but a crucial decision to make us tip. (Of course, the don’t expect one video strip to move me from no awareness of the shows to subscription, but recently hearing that Michael C. Hall is tearing up the screen on Dexter from a friend may have done the trick. Plus, Double D on Cali. 3 shows – that’s more than my 2 on HBO. Sold!)

Showtime have done well – Facebook seems like a pretty smart forum to highlight its show and its cleverly-named, Homegrown Humor Video Contest.

Just like the last image, these profile/status change come into my news feed back-to-back and from the same person. Not the same person as last time, but the same person being excited about the future and now in a relationship.

Half-baked thoughts, but wanted to share.