An exploration of happiness in an abstract way through the art of finding joy in everyday details. A simple and powerful reminder that life is as as good as we allow it to be.

Jonas Salk, the man who developed the polio vaccine, once said “If all the insects on earth disappeared, within 50 years all life on earth would disappear. If all humans disappeared, within 50 years all species would flourish as never before.”

This quote came to mind when I walked the grounds of Hiroshima Peace Memorial Park today. The location of Hiroshima Peace Memorial Park was once the city’s busiest downtown commercial and residential district. The park was built on open field that was created by the explosion.

Before.

After.

Words fail me to describe the intense emotion I felt walking around a former lively neighborhood that transformed into Peace Memorial Park – a monument not only to memorialize the victims, but also to establish the memory of nuclear horrors and advocate world peace. I saw people openly weeping and crying. And I had problems holding back my own tears.

The Hall of Remembrance features a view of the bombed out city as seen from Shima Hospital, the hypocenter. The whole panorama is made of 140,000 tiles, the number of people estimated to have died by the end of 1945 because of the nuclear attack.

140,000 human beings. 140,000 missed opportunities. 140,000 voices we’ll never hear again. 140,000 souls we’ll miss forever. The museum streams their images, names and brief biographies 24/7. A reminder of what we lost.

I was extremely impressed by the honesty of the whole experience. Nobody was blamed. The whole attack was communicated as part of history, as a Japan of the past. I was especially pleased that they paid tribute to the 45,000 Korean victims with this Cenopath. The monument, beautified with Korean national symbols, is intended to honor Korean victims and survivors of the atomic bomb and Japanese colonialism.

Hiroshima’s Peace Memorial Park is less of a memorial to the dead and more of a memorial to the living. How can we ensure nuclear weapons will never be used again? How can we all work together to create world peace? There are three peace bells in the park. I rang this one, twice. Everyone is welcome to contribute to world peace.

The Children’s Peace Monument is a statue dedicated to the memory of the children who died as a result of the bombing. The statue is of a girl with outstretched arms with a folded paper crane rising above her. The statue is based on the true story of Sadako Sasaki, a young girl who died from radiation from the bomb. She believed that if she folded 1,000 paper cranes she would be cured. To this day, people (mostly children) from around the world fold cranes and send them to Hiroshima where they are placed near the statue.

More than anything, Hiroshima Peace Memorial Park is about world peace. It’s been 24,190 days since the attack and 212 days since the last nuclear test. When you walk around, you see flyers everywhere to eliminate the 20,000 nuclear bombs all over the world.

Hiroshima asks us to eliminate nuclear weapons by 2020. Join the cause.

This tricycle used to belong to a kid. A little kid with a future, with a gift to contribute to the world. We wasted this little life. Let’s make sure not to do it ever again. It’s the least we can do.

One of the highlights of ad:tech Tokyo was the keynote of Clark Kokich, Chairman of Razorfish. He introduced the audience to his soon to be released book “Do or Die: A complete rethinking of how brands create and sustain customer relationships.” Interestingly, the book will be released as an iPad app, not a printed book. (The preview site is still a work in progress and not live, and the publishing date of the book wasn’t clear to me, definitely early enough to be a stocking stuffer.)

Advertising used to be about changing perception. Now it’s about changing reality.

That was one of Kokich’s most dramatic paradigm shifts the advertising industry has to deal with in the future. While Einstein might not agree with him, (He famously said: “Reality is merely an illusion, albeit a very persistent one.”) but I believe Kokich understood and distilled a very important insight advertisers have to deal with for a long time to come.

Things aren’t always what they seem. Marketers relied on this fact to make us see things- the way they want us to see them. But wandering through life, letting others create our perceptions, can make a very unfulfilling life. The declining power of mass advertising and the increasing control of customers leads people to desire to be in charge of their own perception of reality. As marketers, changing perceptions is just not that effective anymore. You need to change reality.

Redefine the definition of a big idea

Vail Resorts Epic Mix app redefined the big idea: It was not a huge campaign, it was not some big initiative, it was an app that changed the skiing experience. It was based on the insight that skiing as a solitary experience needs to be complemented by a social experience to enjoy a fulfilling vacation you want to share with your friends. Vail Resorts stayed away from telling people how enjoyable it was to vacation at their properties. Instead, they worked hard to make the actual experience more fun.

Reverse the process: From “Channel up” to “Channel down”

Sure, the commercial is memorable but the real meat of the campaign was a grassroots campaign that allowed fans around the world to write their own future through a unique experience on NikeFootball.com and their Facebook page that gave fans the power to create personalized videos, photos and information that put them on center stage at the World Cup 2010. Fans were then able to take their customized content to build their own Facebook campaign in an attempt to get noticed and selected for “The Chance” which is an elite Nike Academy football camp.

Master the art of collaborative creativity

The “Write the future” campaign from Nike was developed through a collaboration between AKQA, Razorfish, Mindshare and Wieden & Kennedy under the leadership of Nike. None of us is as good as all of us. This can be very effective if the collaboration is organized properly.

Don’t get up in the morning and think ‘What can we we say about the brand today’. Instead, get up in the morning and do something in the spirit of the brand, based on its core beliefs.

Kokich’s closing thought.

I’m looking forward reading his book.

So many books, blog posts and articles have been written about leadership, internal culture and build the team you need for your business. I’ve been thinking about it for years, writing about it and trying to implement many of my findings in my own venture. It’s also very easy to talk about, debate with others and waste your time on it.

My kid has a busy schedule. She has to get up early in the morning to be in school on time, spend all day in school and then go to bed early evening. That doesn’t leave a lot of time for creating things, finding time to think and just be a kid. Over the last few months, she carved out time during the day to just create and think.

After breakfast, she demands half an hour just to play, create things and think. Same happens before she goes to bed.

Maybe it’s that easy:

Give your team the time and space to think and create.

When you look around at your business, is everybody just busy all the time? Does the busy work stifle thinking? How much better would your company perform if you actually give them the freedom to think things through and create based on their thinking?

Simple.

Powerful.

You just won’t attract the best builders in a command and control environment.

Set them free.