Jay-Z and Alicia Keys Parody: Entrepreneurship's New Anthem

by Nathaniel Whittemore · 2010-03-08 16:04:00 UTC
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Gordon Gecko's "Greed is Good" speech. Ayn Rand's arch-individualist anti-heroes. If these are the cultural artifacts of entrepreneurs' pasts, a new viral video called "The New Dork" is poised to become entrepreneurship's new anthem.

"The New Dork - Entrepreneurship State of Mind" is a play on Jay-Z and Alicia Keys's "Empire State of Mind," and is all about how today's geeks -- through a new web site, well-placed Google ads and venture funding, can become the envy of, well -- everyone.

The video was sponsored by Grasshopper, a company that provides phone tools for entrepreneurs and, more broadly, participates in programs to increase entrepreneurial interest. For this video, they partnered with video comedy group the Pantless Knights to produce the spoof.

There are a few reasons this hits the zeitgeist perfectly, and is a great new anthem for entrepreneurship:

1. It puts the joy of doing what you love at the center of what "entrepreneurship" means: The story of entrepreneurship in this video is individuals building businesses around doing what they love. That's the right message for the moment.

2. It's genuinely funny: No one would care about this if it didn't wasn't actually well-done and funny. It was a really smart move for Grasshopper to work on this with a comedy group with a lot of experience in this medium.

3. The piece is itself an example of the creative "all-bets-off" reality of today's entrepreneurial landscape: This video is total "link-bait." In other words, it was commissioned by Grasshopper at least in part so blogs like this one (or more accurately, TechCrunch) would write about them. Mission accomplished. This is so much more interesting and creative than other forms of "advertising," and it could provide huge brand value and perhaps even lead generation for Grasshopper's core products. Put simply, the video's not just about the New Dork, it itself IS the New Dork. Enjoy:

Nathaniel Whittemore is the founder of Assetmap. Previously he was the founding director of the Northwestern University Center for Global Engagement.
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