Unthinkable with Jay Acunzo

Latest Episodes:

Slingshot: I'm No Spider-Man [Creativity Series #17] Sep 25, 2016

Show notes

SUBSCRIBE at unthinkable.fm to get a quick note every Monday morning containing new episodes, exclusive bonus content, and new experiments to join.

TODAY:

Tom O'Keefe is one of the most well-known people in all of Boston. But ask people around town if they know Tom O'Keefe, and they'll say no. This is the story of a simple side project that vaulted Tom from behind-the-scenes in his work to front-and-center, including invites to Fenway Park parties, free rooms at Mohegan Sun, and the radio industry wishing they were as influential as Tom.

(Slingshots are short stories about a creative side project that led somewhere surprising or unexpected. They run every other week as part of Unthinkable.)

LINKS TO KNOW:

Tom's Twitter: twitter.com/bostontweet

Tom's Snapchat: snapchat.com/add/bostontweet

Jay's Twitter: twitter.com/jayacunzo

Jay's Snapchat: snapchat.com/add/jayacunzo

TOPICS DISCUSSED:

Business

Restaurants

Radio

Baseball

Red Sox

Public Speaking

Marketing

Media

Twitter

Entrepreneurship

Startups

2008 Crash

Technology

Creativity

Intuition

Boston

Comfortable Being Uncomfortable [Creativity Series #16] Sep 19, 2016

Show notes

FOR EXCLUSIVE BONUS CONTENT + CREATIVE EXPERIMENTS: Subscribe at http://unthinkable.fm to get a quick note from Jay every Monday morning.

TODAY:

As humans, we're wired to seek out experiences that make us feel comfortable. But in order to hone our intuition and follow it in our creative work, we need to constantly make ourselves slightly UNcomfortable. We need to push outside our comfort zone to grow and create better and better work.

Today, we go outside our echo chamber to hear a story from Jim Mourey, professor of marketing at DePaul University in Chicago, about how he made guests at his mom's BBQ uncomfortable to change the amount of food they ate. Then, we hear from Tim Washer, creative director of Cisco and a comedian who trained under Amy Poehler and Stephen Colbert's lead writer, on why you need to constantly follow the fear.

LINKS TO KNOW:

Jim Mourey's site: http://www.jimmourey.com/

Tim Washer's Twitter: https://twitter.com/timwasher

Tim Washer's speaker page: monumentalshift.com/tim-washer

Jay's Twitter: http://twitter.com/jayacunzo

Jay's Snapchat: http://snapchat.com/add/jayacunzo

SUPPORT FOR THIS EPISODE:

RightSideShirts.org - empowering kids to be more creative and helping art programs in need.

TOPICS DISCUSSED:

Marketing

Intuition

Standup Comedy

Art

Psychology

Cultural Fluency

Academia

Creativity

Craft

Content Marketing

Slingshot: A Side Project Saved My Startup [Creativity Series #15] Sep 11, 2016

Show notes

FOR EXCLUSIVE BONUS CONTENT + CREATIVE EXPERIMENTS: Subscribe at unthinkable.fm to get a quick note from Jay every Monday morning.

TODAY:

Hear the story of a creative side project that saved a startup. Crew co-founder and CEO Mikael Cho talks about Unsplash.com, a photography side project that now boasts billions of photo views each month and salvaged a startup heading for bankruptcy. The project is so widely used today that a photo on the site gets viewed more times than a photo on the cover of TIME Magazine ... but it all started with a ridiculously small amount of time and an even smaller budget.

LINKS TO KNOW:

unsplash.com

Mikael's company: crew.co

Mikael's Twitter: twitter.com/mikaelcho

Jay's Twitter: twitter.com/jayacunzo

Jay's Snapchat: snapchat.com/add/jayacunzo

TOPICS DISCUSSED:

Side Projects

Startups

Photography

Creativity

Craft

Intuition

Art

Technology

Content Marketing

The Bias to Act [Creativity Series #14] Sep 04, 2016

Show notes

FOR EXCLUSIVE BONUS CONTENT: Subscribe at unthinkable.fm to get a quick note from Jay every Monday morning.

TODAY:

Too often, creative people idolize the IDEA of being creative. But our jobs aren't to "be creative." Our jobs are to CREATE. In other words, we need a bias to act. But that's much easier said than done. Until you hear our stories today...

Today, we go outside the echo chamber with executive coach Heather Legge. Although she coaches some of the most powerful women in business, she uses a subtle trick pulled from -- of all things -- golf, in order to build creative momentum for her clients. Then, in our feature story, we hear from a side project master: Alec Brownstein, creative director at Dollar Shave Club. His experiments have shaken the internet, getting passed around the big agency world on Madison Ave, inside Google globally, and all around the world.

LINKS TO KNOW:

Heather Legge's site: http://www.envisionsuccessinc.com/

Heather Legge's Twitter: https://twitter.com/esiresults

Alec Brownstein's site: http://alecbrownstein.com/project.php?cat=3

Alec Brownstein's Twitter: https://twitter.com/jusfonzin

The Google Job Experiment explainer video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7FRwCs99DWg

Jay's Twitter: twitter.com/jayacunzo

Jay's Snapchat: snapchat.com/add/jayacunzo

SUPPORT FOR THIS EPISODE:

RightSideShirts.org - empowering kids to be more creative and helping art programs in need.

TOPICS DISCUSSED:

Momentum

Google

Dollar Shave Club

Golf

Mitt Romney

Side Projects

Creativity

Craft

Intuition

Art

Slingshot: Scott Monty, Oxymoron [Creativity Series #13] Aug 29, 2016

Show notes

SUBSCRIBE: unthinkable.fm to get a quick note every Monday morning containing new episodes, exclusive bonus content, and new experiments to join.

TODAY:

Scott Monty is one of the world's most forward-thinking marketing minds. He spends his time helping big brands evolve, whether that was in-house at Ford or today as a consultant. So why is he so obsessed with the past? And what is he doing building a side project that historians and NBA players alike seem to love?

(Slingshots are short stories about a creative side project that led somewhere surprising or unexpected. They run every other week as part of Unthinkable.)

LINKS TO KNOW:

Scott's side project: http://www.ihearofsherlock.com/

Scott's newsletter and related mini-podcast: http://fullmontyshow.com/

Scott's Twitter: http://twitter.com/scottmonty

Jay's Twitter: http://twitter.com/jayacunzo

Jay's Snapchat: http://snapchat.com/add/jayacunzo

TOPICS DISCUSSED:

Marketing

Media

Newsletters

Technology

Sherlock Holmes

Sir Arthur Conan Doyle

I Hear of Sherlock Everywhere

Blogging

Podcasting

Creativity

Intuition

Zig When Others Zag [Creativity Series #12] Aug 21, 2016

Show notes

SUBSCRIBE AT unthinkable.fm to get a quick note every Monday morning containing new episodes, exclusive bonus content, and new experiments to join.

TODAY:

In a noisy world like ours, you don't just want to be the best of the best. You want to be the only one who does what you do. Today on the show, we explore the need to zig when others zag -- the need to own some white space and be original rather than incrementally beat others who do something similar.

First, we talk about penguins. Because, I mean...penguins. Then we go outside the echo chamber for some tropical house music from DJ Viceroy. Then we hear the story of writer and marketer Finn Dowling of the Humane Society of Silicon Valley, as well as Eddie the Terrible -- a tiny dog at the shelter that got some big internet fame, all because of one very hilarious blog post.

LINKS TO KNOW:

Far Side penguin comic: goo.gl/WuhnTk

Viceroy's music: @viceroymusic

Viceroy's site: www.viceroymusic.com/

Eddie the Terrible blog post: hssvacc.blogspot.com/2014/12/a-full…e-reasons.html

Jay's Twitter: twitter.com/jayacunzo

Jay's Snapchat: snapchat.com/add/jayacunzo

SUPPORT FOR THIS EPISODE:

RightSideShirts.org - empowering kids to be more creative and helping art programs in need.

TOPICS DISCUSSED:

Penguins

Music

Grateful Dead

Rock and Roll

The Far Side

Cartoons

DJ Viceroy

Tropical House

Writing

Blogging

Viral Content

Creativity

Craft

Intuition

Art

On the Making of Unthinkable Jun 27, 2016

Show notes

While we're on hiatus from releasing new episodes, here's a closer look at the thinking and inspiration behind making the show. Be sure to subscribe at http://unthinkable.fm for our emails each Monday morning -- we're sharing the entire framework and process behind making the show run while we tinker on new episodes!

SUBSCRIBE: http://unthinkable.fm

BEHIND-THE-SCENES: http://snapchat.com/add/jayacunzo

SAY HI: http://twitter.com/jayacunzo

TODAY'S EPISODE SYNDICATED FROM: https://soundcloud.com/louderthanwordsjohnbonini

A Message From Jay Jun 06, 2016

Show notes

A message from Jay about the future of Unthinkable. Be sure to subscribe at unthinkable.fm.

Slingshot: Scott Belsky & Behance [Creativity Series #11] May 30, 2016

Show notes

The story of how Scott Belsky created Behance, a global community of creatives focused on making ideas happen.

(Slingshots are short stories about a creative side project that led somewhere surprising or unexpected. They run every other week as part of Unthinkable.)

LINKS TO KNOW:

Behance.com

Scott's Twitter: twitter.com/scottbelsky

SUBSCRIBE TO THE SHOW:

Get a note from Jay every Monday morning, plus links to the newest episode of Unthinkable. Subscribe at unthinkable.fm

GO BEHIND-THE-SCENES

Follow Jay on Twitter: twitter.com/jayacunzo or Snapchat: Snapchat.com/add/jayacunzo

TOPICS DISCUSSED:

Creativity

Tech

Startups

Design

Designers

Portfolios

Venture Capital

Uber

Warby Parker

Creative Missions

Product Design

User Experience (UX)

Beauty in the Broken [Creativity Series #10] May 23, 2016

Show notes

Betting your career on your creativity means you'll have your fair share of saving bad ideas (or "polishing turds" as you'll hear in one of our stories). It also requires the ability to look past the obvious and see the potential for something better or higher quality or generally more creative. It requires you to see beauty in the broken. Today, we look at these ideas from multiple angles.

First, I wrestle with some leftovers (BONUS: you get a recipe out of this episode!). Then, we go outside the echo chamber to hear the curious case of the Warriors -- starting in a very bad place. Then we hear the story of entrepreneur John Marsh, whose career journey looks a lot more like a detour.

LINKS TO KNOW:

John Marsh: www.linkedin.com/in/john-marsh-1576069

John Marsh's real estate business: http://www.liveopelika.com/

New York Times piece on the Warriors: http://www.nytimes.com/2016/04/03/magazine/what-happened-when-venture-capitalists-took-over-the-golden-state-warriors.html?_r=0

SUBSCRIBE TO UNTHINKABLE

Get a simple note written by Jay every Monday morning along with the new episode -- subscribe at http://unthinkable.fm

Jay's Twitter: http://twitter.com/jayacunzo

Behind-the-Scenes making Unthinkable: http://snapchat.com/add/jayacunzo

SUPPORT FOR THIS EPISODE:

http://RightSideShirts.org - Empowering kids to be more creative and helping art programs in need.

TOPICS DISCUSSED: Craft Creativity NBA Basketball Golden State Warriors Joe Lacob Stephen Curry Draymond Green Michael Jordan Real Estate Online Marketing Lead Generation Used Cars Small Businesses Entrepreneurship Suicide Depression Drugs Redemption Cooking Restaurants

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