inspiration: social media

You know what I'm really interested in learning more about? The innovative ways companies and brands are using social media to reach little old us. It's exciting to see huge, traditional corporations and organizations try their hands at new technology in order to make more connections with people. (Take the White House's Flickr account -- love this picture!) Social media has proven to be quite revolutionary, as you can see in this amazing, powerful video:

And the more I think about it, the more inspired (and impressed) I am. It's a vehicle for change and creative thinking, and more significantly, a vessel for any individual to be heard if they want to be. A container of millions of different perspectives, kinda like Wordle, a technology that helps put a creative spin on any normal document.

Wordle generates "word clouds" that give prominence to words that are used the most, while ignoring simple articles. So basically, wordles showcase expressions in a whole new and customizable visual context. (I'm a total word-dork, so I had to make a few myself! Above is a wordle of Obama's "Yes We Can" speech, and below is a wordle of my resume or essentially, me!) Wordle creates so many cool new, unique outlooks -- what a great metaphor for social media, no?