I was recently asked to appear in a short film promoting Little Black Book Online (www.lbbonline.com), an emerging website that creates online city guides based on recommendations from advertising and production professionals.
As you'll see, my fellow creative directors Sir John Hegarty of BBH, Tony Granger of Y&R and Paul Lavoie of Taxi also appear in the film, which is being seeded through targeted emails and industry websites. You can view it at: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yfhzxC1E-9w.
The reason we agreed to help promote this site is that LBBOnline.com offers to donate one English pound to One Laptop Per Child (www.olpc.com) for every recommendation accepted for where advertising and production people should eat, drink and sleep in any advertising center in the world.
The mission of OLPC, a nonprofit association, is "to create educational opportunities for the world's poorest children by providing each and every one with a rugged, lowcost, low-power, connected laptop with content and software designed for collaborative, joyful, self-empowered learning." Their mission statement goes on to say, "By giving a laptop, you are helping bring education to children in some of the world's most remote areas. You are connecting them to each other. To us. And to a better future."
That sounded good enough for me.
If you visit Little Black Book Online, you'll find that you can really make a difference just by giving your opinions and a little bit of your time.
I've already listed places I like in Cannes, New York, Chicago and Los Angeles. As the site grows, we'll see if anyone agrees with my picks!
And in addition to donating my acting "skills," I've also made a donation to purchase a computer to give to kids through the OLPC website. It seemed like the right thing to do.