Practical Genius (29 page)
Authors: Gina Amaro Rudan,Kevin Carroll
There is a collective online consciousness that wants you to be a part of it. You will know you are in your zone online when you
engage, contribute to, and collaborate with others with all your forms of content and visuals. Think of this as genius-to-genius sharing, or, as the author Matt Ridley describes it, “when ideas have sex.” This is what happens online when ideas come together to mesh and expand, deepen and spread. Contributing in this intricately interactive and circular fashion is a unique collaborative experience, probably a little like tripping in the sixties but madly transformative when something comes of it.
PORTRAIT OF A PRACTICAL GENIUS
Frank Cooper III is the senior vice president and chief consumer engagement officer of PepsiCo. Named one of
Fast Company
’s top creatives of 2010, Frank is charged with leading the development of new consumer engagement.
Frank discovered his genius axis as an undergraduate at University of California at Berkeley, studying economic analysis and rhetoric. After graduating from Harvard Law School, Frank began crafting his legacy at Motown Records and Def Jam Recordings before landing at PepsiCo. A true example of an executive living his paradox, Frank plays his guitar daily and is also an avid gamer and a major pioneer in social media. Speaking with him was a lesson in what’s possible when what we know about ourselves intersects with what’s possible in the digital universe.
Frank created a campaign called DEWmocracy, where he tapped the collective intelligence of Mountain Dew fans—PepsiCo’s most passionate consumers—to help write a new chapter in the beverage’s history. Based on Mountain Dew’s DIY persona, Frank launched a campaign to leverage the concept of thriving outside the mainstream, which was a bit radical for a company like PepsiCo. Knowing he had to listen to his creative instincts, Frank consulted with one of his genius tribe, the actor and
director Forest Whitaker, and together they set out to create a virtual world within which Dew fans could actually create a new Mountain Dew flavor. That was the birth of DEWmocracy, which leveraged all sorts of things from social media tools to video-gaming logic to crowdsourcing.
“The campaign allowed ordinary people to create three new beverages, including the names, the packaging, and the ad campaign. We didn’t create them; they did,” Frank said. “What started out as an experiment based on the belief that within each person there is creativity and within the collective there is more creativity resulted in a profound opportunity to engage with the people we care most about. It was the most successful limited-time product offering in PepsiCo history, with the sale of seventeen million cases in twelve weeks.”
This is a great example of engaging the power of the tribe to stimulate growth. By taking a risk and allowing the tribe to innovate on the company’s behalf, both the brand and the tribe experienced a profound opportunity to attract, engage, and grow.
Marketing genius ain’t your father’s marketing. It calls for a whole new perspective on who’s selling what to whom. And it’s where the rubber meets the road on living your practical genius.
P’s for “paradox.” Embrace the beautiful opposing forces within you, and exude the whole of your identity without apology. It is when you express the great truth of the whole that marketing becomes effortless.
RANCESCA PR
Back to the Beginning
Here you are, all fat and happy, enjoying the hell out of your other G-spot, aren’t you? That’s nice, but I didn’t write this book for
you
, I wrote it for
us.
The real power of practical genius will be fully realized only when it goes beyond what it does for
you
and becomes the monster movement of
we
that it was meant to be.
My name is Gina, and I’m here to recruit you.
Enough with the conformity—on with the rebellion. Enough with the mediocrity—on to excellence. Enough with short-lived transactional hookups—on to lifelong relationships with teachers, fat brains, Yodas, fellow geniuses, and future geniuses that create and compound true value in the world in which we want to live and work. Enough with the degenius diet—on to a mind, body, and spirit richly fed.
Living life as a practical genius is a choice. It’s a conscious choice to be a childlike learner, a curious explorer, a paradox, a guru. It’s the choice to accept your contradictions, spread your ideas, and join the other geniuses living at the fringes, where my genius movement is happening as you read this.
This genius life is an experiment. As bossy as I have been while guiding you on this journey, by now you know that there’s no right or wrong way to do this. When the dormant dynamic ingredients within you come alive and mesh, what you love becomes what you’re good at, what you’re good at is what you love, and the unique and unlikely dots of your life connect.
Self-innovation is at your fingertips. Collective innovation is, too. When all our genius assets are engaged and when geniuses are engaged with one another, things change. Genius loves company, but it also has a passport. It travels and spreads and explores uncharted territory and unbeaten paths.