Voice

Contact:
The Mechanism, North America
Sharon Terry
+1 212 221 3444
Sharon.Terry@themechanism.com

NEW YORK, NY September 14, 2011 — Nonprofit culinary arts organization The James Beard Foundation has hired The Mechanism to help them establish a modern and effective web experience through powerful back and front-end development and online marketing. This fresh approach will allow The James Beard Foundation to utilize robust social media tools to better reach and expand their audiences. It will also encourage site visitors to not only connect with the Foundation, but to connect with fellow food and wine lovers around the world, enhancing their culinary and social experiences. Additionally, the site will offer improved online benefits to members.

The James Beard Foundation’s mission is to celebrate, nurture, and preserve America’s diverse culinary heritage and future. Their programs run the gamut from elegant guest-chef dinners, to scholarships for aspiring culinary students, to educational conferences, to industry awards.

“We are delighted to partner with The James Beard Foundation to take their online presence to the next level,” said Dave Fletcher, Founding Partner, The Mechanism, New York City. “The Mechanism and The James Beard Foundation teams are working hand-in-hand to create the ultimate foodie experience for their members as well as future members.”

“The James Beard Foundation is excited to be working with The Mechanism to take our online presence to the next level,” said JBF vice president Mitchell Davis. “Food is such an important part of why people engage with digital media. We are looking forward to enriching the breadth and depth of the experience the Beard Foundation brings to the table.”

The Mechanism is a full-service digital agency founded in 2001 with offices in New York, London and Durban, South Africa. They provide a distinct brand-focused approach, demystifying and guiding the use of technology in a highly strategic manner.

During meetings, on phone calls, while casually talking in the hallway, someone utters the phrase “it’s a chicken and egg thing.” It is usually uttered to describe a challenge where determining what should happen first is hard to ascertain. In reality the whole chicken and the egg metaphor is just an easy way to not make a decision. By hiding behind an aphorism a decision is postponed, the conversation put on hold.

Well, the answer is the egg. So there.

Now you can’t say “what came first?” because you know the answer. So, don’t postpone the decision, keep the conversation going.

Yes, the egg.

The chicken evolved from another animal. Maybe a dinosaur, maybe a bird, maybe some other creature we have yet to discover. Chickens are mutants. Some animal laid an egg, inside that egg was a mutation and when it hatched, a chicken was born.

Except, once I started writing this and went searching for the scientific evidence that I held as truth I learned British scientists had discovered a protein they claim unequivocally proves the chicken came first.

The scientists found that a protein found only in a chicken’s ovaries is necessary for the formation of the egg. The egg can therefore only exist if it has been created inside a chicken. The protein speeds up the development of the hard shell, which is essential in protecting the delicate yolk and fluids while the chick grows inside the egg, the report said.  ”It had long been suspected that the egg came first but now we have the scientific proof that shows that in fact the chicken came first,” said Dr. Colin Freeman, from Sheffield University’s Department of Engineering Materials, according to the Mail.” The protein had been identified before and it was linked to egg formation, but by examining it closely we have been able to see how it controls the process,” he said.

Well, the answer is the chicken. So there.

Every day you have the capacity to know more than the day before. Every day the potential exists for you to realize that something you held as absolute truth it’s not.

Next time someone says it’s a chicken and egg thing, just say the chicken came first, make a decision, move the conversation, question your assumptions, get the thing done, and go learn something new.

The Thinking Mechanism is a series of weekly posts, published on Fridays, covering the ideas The Mechanism is thinking and talking about with our peers and clients.

It used to be that art was the device we used to view ourselves within the world around us. Art would help us see things in new ways, with new perspectives. Once you stood in front of Monet’s Water Lilies at MoMA, a massive triptych the size of a wall, you never looked at water the same again.

Today technology is what we use to view ourselves, but unlike art, the better the technology gets the more introspective the perspective becomes. We are coddled by algorithms and mobile devices to do what we want, the way we want it, when we want it, everything shifting towards us and not the world around us.

As hurricane Irene assaulted our area with it’s macabre beauty and destruction, it was hard not to think that water is truly the enemy of technology. Hard not to think that we need more artists using technology to create art that shifts our viewfinder outwards allowing us to see things again for the first time.

That is precisely what two young filmmakers did while Irene pummeled the streets of New York, and in turn shared with us a new, unexpected perspective of the city we love and often take from granted.

The Thinking Mechanism is a series of weekly posts, published on Fridays, covering the ideas The Mechanism is thinking and talking about with our peers and clients.