strategic hogwash

Preschool Web Lessons

2010-03-17T00:18:00.000-07:00

I run into a problem every now and again. Like many of you with kids, despite an incalculable amount of toys, every so often my children sit among the puzzles, dolls, balls, trucks, beads, books, and art supplies and complain that they have nothing to do. At my worst, I tell them if they don't think they've got enough stuff, I can make space for new stuff simply by throwing out or selling the current crop. But at my best, I call in my wife who changes out the baskets of "things" for toys, games, paper and markers, etc. that have been hiding in closets for months, just waiting for their big moment in the rotation to come out and be used again. The idea is so simple, but it comes from watching our kids' preschool teacher put out new and interesting things for the kids to come up and play with on a daily basis. Each day, a new set of interesting things to touch, consider, explore, try, and engage with.

You see where this is going, right?

Today, in discussing a next wave scope of work, a client of ours laid out clear objectives of: getting people to return to our site multiple times and to increase the amount of time they spend on the site with each visit. There's certainly nothing remotely wrong with that goal on the surface. Who wouldn't want to strive for that? It's a cool, informative side married to a fun idea and campaign. But it wasn't designed with Preschool Considerations, if you know what I mean. Which is to say, it was conceived to entertain and inform not to change shape on a daily basis.

But the truth is, if the hope is to get users to come, stay, and return, we must concept the work with that teacher mentality - introducing new pieces, featuring engaging content, creating unexpected and exceptional experiences and tools, etc. I know this is old news in this here digital world, but I find myself fascinated by the overlap of how people create engaging content and contexts for a specific target simply by bringing the shiny stuff out of the closet with some consistency and frequency. It doesn't matter if your world is hi-tech or analog, if you want someone to come back and stay, you've got to give them something new.

Drawing Inspiration

2010-03-15T00:28:00.000-07:00

My family ordered pizza and watched "Up" last night. And yes, I continue to marvel at Pixar's technical innovation (how did they light that girl's room up like a kaleidoscope as the balloon-house rose above it?). I can't believe what I watched is animation. I simply refuse to believe it. My theory is that in addition to computer wizardry, there is a healthy dose of magic that is added in post-production and that is how the film turns out the way it does. It's just a theory.

But amazingly, I am more astonished by the aspect of this film that has nothing to do with computer animation or RenderMan technology. I think the true genius of this film (and, most of Pixar's offerings) comes through the storytelling.

"Up" is a clinic in taking a basic story idea and developing richness around it. The basic outline couldn't be simpler: From childhood, a man finds his perfect match. They love each other. They live a long, beautiful life together. But she dies before they can ever do the one big adventure they'd planned since they were children. In her absence, he feels the weight of her death at every moment. How does he move on?

That's where the genius of imagination creates depth and nuance and metaphor. It is the moment in the process in which the author stops thinking solely in linear waves, but in the abstract, in analogies and symbols, in the "what if" and limitless possibility. And in this part of the creative process, in which the expected and the familiar are gently set aside, true creation is allowed to play and breathe and lead and expand.

In "Up", the protagonist Carl's problem is the heaviness of age and adulthood, and so ironically his backstory is that he sells helium balloons - a lighter than air occupation that is entirely connected to the emotional nature of childhood.

The writers have his dying wife giving him her “Adventure Book”. At a page labeled “Stuff I’ve done”, Carl (and the viewer) think that the rest of the book must be blank, because Carl has never had the courage to turn the page. And yet, at the critical moment toward the end, he turns the page only to discover that Ellie had placed pictures of their whole life together in that section – it wasn’t empty after all. The truth is that life with Carl was the adventure. That the “Stuff” they’d done together was the stuff of their own adventure. Their journey together was the story.

And, of course, there's the beautiful twist that our protagonist must literally let go of his house and possessions in order to move on living in the future.

But I didn't intend this post to be about plot recap. More about taking a simply truthful story and allowing imagination and potential take it to places elaborate and undiscovered and unexpected. I am inspired to apply this to everything I touch. The question is: how? I see how this is the expectation for artists and writers, but can this be done in the planning world? Is there room for imaginative layer and abstract discovery and promoting the unexpected? What forms does that take? Is it in the brief? At the briefing? In a presentation? Pitching new business? Or only when a creative team shows the desire to go there? When is it appropriate? When is it not? Would a client go for the ride? Would a creative team? How is creative license and the spirit of inventiveness used for constructive positive outcomes vs distracting cleverness?

Inspiration can be a tricky proposition that comes with a lot of questions when a person seeks practical applications for it. But at the end of the day, if I'm not trying to tell a story that's never been told, I guess I think...what's the point? I think the gang at Pixar would agree.

An Ear for Passion

2010-01-28T23:28:00.000-08:00

I watched and listened to our Director of Design, Steve Cullen, walk through a wall of thoughtful design for a client today. And although the client was mostly reacting to the offerings from what I perceived to be a place of gut-level reaction (much like the way an untrained eye such as mine reacts to art in a museum), I was fascinated by the depth of thinking and the absolute conviction with which Steve was describing every facet and detail of the work as he moved from typeface to iconography to palette.

What I realized is this: if you're talking passionately about something you love, I don't care what the topic, I will listen to you go on and on for hours on end. I might not agree with your point of view. I might not share your passion for the subject matter. But it doesn't matter if it's the history of salt, or why legs bend, or how a kite works, or the creation of a neon sign above Broadway, I will sit and listen and you will amaze me.

Sadly, I think the converse is also true. Which is to say, if you're talking about something I am drawn to from the deepest, most authentic place in my soul, and you're simply mumbling your way through your thoughts, you will lose me in the first five minutes. And odds are if it's something I really care about, you'll not only lose me, you'll upset me.

The bottom line is this: the world needs passion. It needs people who get excited about soap suds, and numbers, and produce, and design. And those people's voices need to be encouraged and heard. Many of us are ready to listen.

Social Singularity

2009-10-19T11:20:00.000-07:00

Over a year ago, I made the very purposeful decision to take the twitter application off of my facebook profile (this was before "selective twitter" was up and running). I was noticing that there were things I wanted to say to my twitter followers that made sense to them and to that medium that the old friends, family, and grad school crowd wouldn't find relevant or even make sense. Though it felt odd at first, I came to the conclusion that I wanted to keep those worlds separate. That people who knew the way I was currently thinking (as a brand strategist and pseudo-cultural anthropologist) were all captured on one medium while those with whom I relate to in a different (though no less authentic way) I was connected to on another medium. Not exclusively, of course, but separate to some extent.

And for a while, this plan worked very well.

Recently, my brother started a twitter account. I was amazed, excited, and then alarmed. Last night, my wife and I talked about her entrance into the blogosphere as an aspiring novelist, and the various ways to get connected and to promote her books and build a community. And lo, the conversation included some overlap into the distinct worlds I had created for myself. Today, a friend from grad school started following my tweets. The fastest growing demographic segment on Facebook are women over 55. The norm is now that your parents are on the same platforms as you, sending you links, "liking" your status updates, commenting on your posts, and re-tweeting your insights and confessions.

We knew that this, like all trends, was inevitable. That was the whole idea behind it, right? The Influencers and their trickle-down technologies eventually must either move on to a different, less crowded space, or concede that those circles of distinction must at some point become crowded to the point where all personal networks are populated by the people from previously separated spheres of your life.

This convergence of the members of disparate real life and/or digital circles is known as Social Singularity.

The implications of this go hand-in-hand with the past decade's obsession with the notion of the "democratization of exclusivity" or "massclusivity". When we all have access, various things happen. Innovation and evolution become necessary as new platforms are born and grow. The heavily populated social spaces either lose their appeal, or evolve into hubs of active, though uncontrollable communications (see: YouTube & the gross increase of Twitter spam). And most importantly, in a very positive way, the newcomers to the digital social space make the space a more viable place to develop new means of contact and community, as there becomes less education and dispelling necessary when people jump in and experience things for themselves.

Truth in Creativity, by Maurice Sendak

2009-10-12T11:53:00.000-07:00

For those who don't know me, I have two kids: Sadie, 6, and Charlie, almost 3. We love reading. LOVE it. I will spare you the column-that-could-be about the very best in kid lit and instead give you my thoughts on the amazing rediscovery the world is having with the 1963 Maurice Sendak classic, Where the Wild Things Are.

First off, the film looks insanely delicious. God bless Spike Jonze and any other director who chooses costumes over CGI (also a column-that-could-be). But more importantly, the release of the film has given many of us dads a chance to dust off a copy of the book and share it with our kids with a bit more care - lingering over the illustrations, considering the simplicity of the words, and asking on each page, "what do you think Max is feeling here?"

This is what I love. In a 10 sentence book, Sendak nails childhood. I mean, NAILS it. Who hasn't felt angry and wild and filled with feelings that are too big for our bodies? And yes, yes of course "let[ting] the wild rumpus start." If for nothing else than for the magic of those three words. But clearly for reminding us of what it means to feel alone and isolated and wronged and the need to rebel.

But these days I find myself intrigued by the feelings of loneliness Max experiences when the rumpus is over and he wants to be "where someone loves him best of all." The part of the book most of us don't remember or consider. The time-to-go-home part. The part that completes Max's journey. The part that brings remorse and need and closure to the experience of being a kid.

This book is a study in truth expressed creatively. Find the truth of a human experience, (and not the kind of truth we Brand Strategists like to throw on a creative brief really quickly - you know, the daypart/website pattern/general-generational characteristics, but a real essential understanding of what it's like to be human - kids have big, wild feelings and need to get them out and then need to know that they can have those feelings and still be loved best of all) and then tell that story in a surprising, tender, delightful, and daringly original way.

It's what any creative endeavor should strive for, be it a book, song, painting, classroom lesson, brainstorming session, and, yes, advertising & marketing too.

So, thanks, Maurice Sendak. From my kids to my colleagues, thanks.

Apple Calls it Quits (a "what if" exploration)

2009-06-24T13:51:00.000-07:00

It is never a good sign when a blog entry begins with a disclaimer. And yet, I offer up the following: I am not a technologist, but I love technology. My wife and I still use our VCR (sometimes). My iPhone was a birthday present, but I almost cried when I dropped it within the first week of having it. I do not have HDTV. Clearly not an expert, I am, I’d say, an observer. A lite-social-networking, twittering, blogging, account planner. I like the conversation. I am fascinated more by the social implications of technology than by the wizardry of the mechanism. I offer this up as a canvas, a backdrop for the conversation I’m keen on having.

In the unlikely event you’ve been living on a planet other than ours for the past couple weeks, you will have undoubtedly been witness to the launch of the iPhone3Gs (the greatest, fastest, most powerful of the 3G's, now with cut and paste!). The frenzy this launch stirred amuses and confuses me. People were once again lined up, huffy and aggressive outside of Apple and AT&T stores for hours. I mean, like 12 hours or more. And others have been expressing for months their plans to get the new device right away. Give their first gen iPhone to the missus, to a kid, to eBay. It didn’t really matter, so long as there was a place for it to go to justify the new purchase.

But as I sat there, with my own suddenly ancient piece of handheld networking iCapability, I wondered, what if the folks at Apple just closed their doors? What if Steve Jobs pulled a Wonka, and just…no more. Aside from the obvious economic ramifications (unemployment, the cost of switching various hardwares) and the disappointment of MacJunkies like myself who will miss out on new designs, and the feeling of “us” that comes with aligning yourself with this anti-PC community. Also, let’s limit this to personal technologies so that the discussion doesn’t meander into the need for medical advancements or better aviation. If we’re just talking about our everyday, humdrum hardware needs and usage, I wonder what we’d be missing. Aren’t our computers fast enough? Can’t we find what we hope to find? Don’t we have enough access? Enough games? Couldn’t we conceivably have full, prosperous, connected lives if personal technologies did not advance beyond this point?

I know Ray Kurzweil's answer. Help me out here, followers of Singularity. What would the argument be? That it is inevitable that technology must continue, must advance because the merging of humanity and machinery will bring about our best-self evolution. But I’m posing what if we put on the brakes at this point? What if we stop now?

What if we thought more about Sherry Turkle’s approach? What if we question what the relationships people are developing with technology? Turkle argues that:

Our new intimacies with our machines create a world where it makes sense to speak of a new state of the self. When someone says, 'I'm on my cell,' 'online,' 'on instant messaging,' or 'on the web,' these phrases suggest a new placement of the subject, a subject wired into social existence through technology, a tethered self. I think of tethering as the way we connect to always-on communication devices and to the people and things we reach through them.

Wow. Look at the big brain on Brett! (aside: I am fully prepared to be schooled on both Kurzweil and Turkle. I don’t mean in any way to dumb down or reduce their thinking. Both are worth studying and understanding in any way possible.) The truth is I wonder if we need new technologies to continue driving us toward a new kind of connection. Some would argue that the new connectivity exchanges human contact for honest conversation. That although we don’t see one another, we feel more free to express our truest thoughts, to let our id run free, to say what’s really on our minds because it’s not really us, it’s our online selves. The converse to that is that people need to learn to interact eye to eye. That our humanness is critical to our survival as a species. What I’m asking is shouldn’t we work on learning to make direct, personal, actual human connections, decisions, negotiations before lining up to get the next gadget that will do it all for us? It’s like Jeff Goldblum’s Dr. Ian Malcolm says in Jurassic Park: “Yeah, but your scientists were so preoccupied with whether or not they could, they didn't stop to think if they should.”

Now the twist. Although it seems I’m arguing against the development of more technology, I am more trying to start a dialogue. Keep in mind, I love my laptop, my iPhone, the ability to text. To tweet. To post to tumblr. To videochat my wife and two kids from the road. To cleverly update my status on facebook. And so on. So, talk to me. Tell me. Instruct me. I could use it. I’m earnestly inquiring as to what we’d be missing if we could pause personal technology development at this point in time and make due with where we’ve arrived.

two simple words

2009-06-09T15:34:00.000-07:00

I just bought a new notebook. A return to the Moleskine blank page journal model after an ill-thought departure in which a sketch book took its place. (No bad-bad against the sketch book, but there's something about that hard black cover, the size, the experience of it.) Ach. This is all beside the point.

When I open it up, I write the same two words on the first page as I've written on my notebooks for the past few years: "what if..." (the ellipses is optional)

I daresay these two words are potentially the most powerful two in all of the English language. They hold more potential energy than any I can think of. They ask us to consider. They go beyond the norm, expanding our sense of what's possible.

A much, much, much smarter man than myself, Sandy Goldberg, Professor of Philosophy at Northwestern likes these words too. When I met him at last year's Idea Festival, I was struck by our shared devotion to these two small words. He led a too-short discussion about the power of "what if..." in which he described the phrase as an important tool in a philosopher's arsenal of possibility.

The problem of not indulging our ability to wonder and allowing "what if" thinking to seep into our processes is that "we end up taking the efficient cognitive path in substitution for imaginative thinking." Professor Goldberg's words there. And his example was walking through a forest for the first time. We can either explore and take paths untaken or we can go where we clearly see others have been. Typically, we take the path we see others have been and soon our footsteps have worn a path through the woods that becomes visible and clear, which is helpful in some regards, but it is hazardous in others. You see, with a well-worn path through the woods, the next interloper tends not to consider a new path, and instead walks safely to the other side without a second thought.

Our brains work in similar ways. In thinking in ways that have worked well for us in the path, not only do we stop considering the untrod possibilities, but we actually have a hard time forcing ourselves to explore the non-path should we so much as force ourselves to try.

I work as a strategic planner. It's the dreaming of ideas that makes my job interesting. The past months in particular, I have had cause (good fortune) to offer up my thoughts about a couple of several brands' (to remain unnamed) current and future positions. As I presented the "what if" directions to them, they were met with various reactions. For the most part, they were received with "we like the way you're thinking about this", which is great, but a couple of responses were more like "no. that's not us." Which is fine. My ideas are far from perfect. My batting average on these things is somewhere along the Mendoza line, so I'm hardly in a position to disagree.

I think I'm not bothered by the rejection of the ideas as much as the velocity in which a couple of them were administered. I wish I could get clients to pause and consider. To ask "what if" a lot more. As I've said, rejection is not my issue. I'm fond of the ensuing conversation. I'm interested in getting us after the pursuit of the thing; the collaboration that whittles the idea down or morphs it or (yes, truly) sinks it altogether.

Here's my challenge to you: if you're on the agency-side of things, I dare you to include in every strategy brainstorm, creative brief, client presentation, and concepting session (yes creatives - you glorious, misunderstood geniuses too); I dare you to include one moment or slide or devoted, focused consideration to "what if..."

If you're on the client-side of the map, I implore you to contemplate. Have vision. Consider. Challenge. Discuss. But most importantly, allow. Allow "what if..." to have its moment. Give it a beat. Allow for the possibility of something different. Allow for magic. For "my god, I never thought of that." Allow for absurdities that translate into consumer consideration that translate into commitment that translate into staunch declarations and onomatopoetic rapture. But also allow for the unthinkable. The horrendous. The belly-flop. Give some space to experimentation. Not committed dollars. Not even a greenlight. Just allow for the idea that something not found in flowcharts, graphs, and telephone surveys might be alarmingly relevant and staggeringly effective.

To each of you, I say good luck. I hope you take me up on my "what if" challenge. I happen to think the unknown is where innovation lies. And I think you'd be surprised at what can be inspired by opening up a conversation with two simple words. If you'd like to see them again, they're written on the first page of my Moleskine.

in the eye of the beholder

2009-02-12T12:21:00.000-08:00

So I'm looking for a second car. Our family owns a CR-V, which is perfect for our little foursome. But, increasingly, the world seems like it would be si

gnificantly easier to handle if we had a second car. A commuter. One with a backseat in which I can tak

e my 5 and 2 year old to various Seattle places while mom gets going hither and thither. All of which leads to Ed.

Ed and I worked together in the Advanced Planning department at Nissan/Infiniti, nearly 5 years ago now, though both of us have since moved on. He is still one of the smartest people I know, not just about cars (which he is), but about consumer habits and human tendencies. (there you go, Ed, no more compliments for another 5 years.) So it seemed only fitting that I ask Ed his opinion about what car might fit my aforementioned needs, and hopefully doesn't end in the word "Civic" (no slight to Honda - as noted, we drive & love their products, I just happen to be a car-personality guy and Honda isn't first on my list from that standpoint.)

Today, Ed continued our ongoing conversation by proposing Nissan's Cube to me. When you look at the import, it's hard not to notice the asymmetrical rear window which wraps around the passenger side of the car. The website claims: "symmetry is so last year." I'm undecided on the design choice, but it led to a great conversation with Ed about nature, symmetry, balance, and perception.

Here's the gist of it. Ed claimed that nature is not symmetrical. He recalled going for a hike to the top of a mountain in San Diego in which he looked out over the majesty of the area and found the view interrupted by the straight lines and right angles of a casino. This was indicative to him of the great truth that nature is asymmetrical. I tried to argue with him. Poor architecture, more than a solid proof point. I pointed out the cyclical nature of seasons, of day following night following day, and of an annual trip we all take once around the sun. Like clockwork. But Ed raised the counterpoint that those were examples of balance, not symmetry.

Symmetry is roughly defined as: the quality of being made up of exactly similar parts facing each other or around an axis.

So, he had me there.

True symmetry, he pointed out, is creepy to look at. I recall hearing once that symmetry in faces is actually what draws us to them. It's why Denzel is "Denzel", a People magazine most beautiful person and Forrest Whitaker is simply a brilliant actor. (the audacity! simply a brilliant Oscar winning actor - my apologies, Mr. Whitaker). I looked at some facial symmetry fun, but then did my own experiments using Photo Booth. It wasn't horrible, but I can se how it isn't quite the state of "perfection" we think of.

So, I changed my hypothesis because I could see that Ed was going to be all "science-y" and to the letter about this. The new hypothesis was that any conclusions about symmetry in nature must take into account the human propensity to see symmetry where there is asymmetry. Let's call it "Perceived Symmetry". We, as humans, are attracted most to the things we perceive as symmetrical. It's natural to do so. It explains the beauty of snowflakes, butterfly wings, the majesty of Mt. Rainier.

It also explains a lot of artistic and creative design choices. If we didn't perceive Michelangelo's David to be symmetrical, we might not be quite as fascinated by his beauty. Imagine David with a scrawny arm, or eyes like Marty Feldman. You can't because it ruins the perfection we associate with that work. The glorious iPhone is shaped to symmetric delight, as are most of Apple's award-winning designs. Even looking around my desk, the lovelier items are designed with a sense of symmetry. SIGG water bottle, Swingline stapler, desk lamp.

The point here is that to make a design choice which is asymmetrical is one that can be used very effectively. But I believe it is counter-natural. Meaning, beauty is typically found in perceived symmetry. However, what what would Marilyn Monroe's beautiful face be without that amazing mole on her lower left cheek? Or Van Gogh's single white iris in a field of blue. As Ed points out, "artificial things often become endearing in their asymmetry because they become less intimidating." A slight imperfection here or there gives something a touch of character, shows that there really is no such thing as perfection (as that's a subjective measure), and makes the object (or person) more human through its quality of being juuuuust off. And here, I'm thinking of the beautiful design of Karim Rashid's Yum Bowl, amongst others.

So, where are we left after all this? Without conclusion, I'm afraid, but with an interesting consideration of the notion of perception, and the unsatisfying concession that beauty truly is in the eye of the beholder. Even in a rear windshield.

comedy ain't for just anyone

2009-02-09T14:46:00.000-08:00

Far be it from me to pronounce myself as any sort of comic genius. I am reminded of Eugene Levy's Dr. Pearl from Guffman who professed not being the class clown, but sitting next to him. And studying him. So take my critique and analysis with a grain of salt.

Today I watched "Francesco Vezzoli's project Greed, a faux ad campaign for an imagined perfume." This is meant to be a satire, thumbing its nose at the idea of promotions in the luxury product world. But it's terrible. Just terrible. I tweeted as such and my friend's response was enough to get my engines running. He wondered how this could have been avoided. His snarkiness aside, there's something to this line of questioning. He wondered if a different director or fight ch

oreographer might have helped the end result.

The whole experience actually made me consider two things:

1) Broad, self-aware slapstick comedy will never lead to laughter.

2) Comedy is hard. It is an art form that aught to be respected on the level of intense drama.

First part first. Think about Will Ferrell. I know, the last thing he needs is promotion. But he's widely considered one of the funnier people in the universe. He excels at both nuanced, life-or-death stakes realism as well as ridiculously over the top, fully-committed humor.

When the men enters a room in an electric wheelchair and opens a 2-inch cell phone, he just enters the reality of that physicality. The women in the Greed spot look like they've been told not to worry about what it all means, just roll on the floor and try to grab the perfume bottle. What surprises me is that both Portman and Williams have proven themselves to be gifted nuanced actors. And I wish I'd had the chance to see something more carefully performed, which I hypothesize, would have ended up significantly more biting and halfway amusing.

Which leads me to the second point. There's a reason some "comedy" stars are bankable. It's that they're funny and they're aware that comedy takes work. They know timing, commitment, delivery, and subtlety can make or break a moment. Which is interesting. Because I'll bet if you asked Steve Carrell and Ralph Fiennes how to make a single moment work they'd have similar answers. I'm just saying, being put in a wacky situation and making some faces doesn't make something funny in the same way that asking Jack Black to play the priest in Doubt would have probably have been the undoing of that movie (please see: King Kong).

I guess the bottom line is I think much as we'd like to believe that making people laugh is as easy as having a clever idea. But it's hard work that requires a good amount of talent and understanding of process. And it does help to just be funny.

...and while you're at it, create the next facebook, ok?

2008-12-04T11:28:00.000-08:00

Another request came in from a client to create "viral videos" for them. Am I the only one in the world wide web of advertising to secretly roll their eyes at this request?

That's not entirely fair. I know what they're after. We all do. In every marketing department's vision, they create quirky web content that gets passed around the net and tallies a million hits before the sun rises the day after. But, for every Prop 8 - The Musical or Kobe jumping the Aston Martin, well-financed, professionally filmed and edited videos, there are 100 undiscovered gems like "One Line on the Sopranos" which explode due to their sheer creativity, audacity, or idiocy.

I guess what I'm getting at is that much as we'd love to accept the notion that with the mere instruction of making a viral video, we can actually create one. What we can do is build some online content. And yes, it could be a video. And yes, we'll probably make it funny. Will it be sliced bread? Probably not. Will people talk about it? Some will. Maybe a lot will. But once again, marketers are fooling themselves into thinking that control is their own when it comes to the internet.

I love viral videos. I have a tendency to laugh out loud (sorry. to lol) from my desk. There's a group of friends I share my favorite discoveries with. And THAT's what viral means. It means that we pass things around to a group who, in turn, pass them on to more people. Much like...wait for it...a virus. But from a marketing/advertising standpoint, they are one option. They certainly aren't the only option, and aren't always the best one when they're picked. At the end of the day, a great idea is a great idea. If people respond to it by sharing it, that's wonderful. But let's be careful what we, as advertisers, put within a scope of work, and let's be careful marketing departments that if we ask for a presence on the web, we understand that we will be playing by the rules of its democracy, that we can't dictate what becomes the vid du jour. If we could, we'd never have been able to predict or explain The Zombie Boy who loves turtles, Benny Lava or the Dramatic Chipmunk.

in defense of accessibility, big ideas, and wild hair

2008-11-20T09:11:00.000-08:00

The brown cardboard package indicating an awaited delivery from Amazon.com sat wedged in the mail slot begging to be freed from its bear trap. Upon recognizing my own name on the address label, I knew instantly what was inside. "Outliers", Malcolm Gladwell's latest lay snugly within the cardboard casing, and I, like my 5 year old on her birthday, tore open the package like a very hungry moose, or a deserving porcupine (if you know your literature).

It is not rapture to read this book. Not in the way it is to settle into the worlds of some of the fiction I'm fond of. But it is engaging. And utterly engrossing. And as I predicted to my wife, I think I'll be done with it within the week.

Yesterday, I had it lying on my desk at work and one of the fellas came by and we had the following exchange (not verbatim. but relatively close):

Him: I heard that sucks.

Me: excuse me?

Him: I heard that sucks.

Me: oh? who said so?

Him: reviewers.

Me: hm.

Him: they say his methodology is shit and that it's not as good as Blink.

Me: I'm actually more a fan of The Tipping Point than I ever was of Blink.

Him: well that's what they say.

Me: hm.

Despite my powerfully persuasive, monosyllabic, vowelless utterings, we ended at that impasse. But I did realize that there are many who dismiss Gladwell's ideas, his logic, his whole being as not scientific enough. Or too "poppy". Some even take great pride in disproving his theories. The most famous of which is Duncan Watts, who set out to discredit the Connectors, Mavens, Salesmen trifecta that Gladwell laid out in how trends move through our world. And he does offer up intelligent, scientific proof that he created using virtual community programming models. By all accounts, when I heard about him, he got me thinking. But then I realized, I wonder if Malcolm Gladwell cares?

Which isn't a slap in the face to the theorists who seek to knock him off the pedestal on which he never (as far as I know) asked to be placed. It's more to say, my sense of Mr. Gladwell is that he's simply curious. He thinks a big thought and then seeks to figure out a new way of approaching its proof and its validity. Blink certainly isn't the only book ever written about instinct, but it might be the most accessible. And therein lies Gladwell's gift. And by gift, I don't just mean his talent, but a gift he gives to we the people. He makes complex thinking available to those who can't follow the logarithms and theorem proofs that make big ideas seem the sole property and realm of the eggheaded and singularly-focused statisticians of the world.

In the Gladwellian form, I offer up as lab rats two of my dear friends from college. To protect their identities, I will change their names from Alex and Dave to Sam and Eric, respectively.

Sam and Eric were two of the smartest guys I've ever met. Ever. Each of them clearly representing the top echelon of intellectual minds at Tufts University in the mid-1990s. Both clearly well versed, and well-studied in multiple disciplines, they each settled into their respective majors with both ease and regret at not choosing one of the other numerous potential pursuits of study. Both had, over the drinking of beers, revealed (confessed?) their near-perfection on the standardized testing circuit. Both had rejected offers to attend other Ivy League schools based on academic opportunities and scholarship offers from the good people at Tufts. Both had proven their linguistic dexterity through dizzying thesaurian conversations that amounted to wordplay-based one-upmanship. By any measure, they were smart. Dare I say, very smart.

And yet, if asked, I need not be heavily pressed to offer the opinion that Eric was the more intelligent of the two. (Oddly, I was actually much closer friends with Sam, and want desperately to change the story in his favor. But, I did just gush over his intelligence, so...meh.) The difference was very clear. While both beyond capable of passionate discourse on wide ranging subject matter, Eric had a way of making it all so tangible, so real. As if even I, a mere English major, quick-quitter of the pre-med program, soon thereafter Master of Fine Arts, even I could grasp Kant, Einstein, and Kurzweil. I didn't, entirely, of course truly grasp their theories. But Eric had a way of making it available to me in ways that Sam never could. He took big ideas and made them accessible. Not dumbed-down. Not condescending. Just, possible.

I think that's a real gauge for true intelligence. The ability not only to wrestle with big ideas, but to consider an audience and make the same information meaningful, fascinating, and understandable to them. I love this kind of intelligence because it helps the world engage in conversations and ideas they wouldn't otherwise be having because they aren't encouraged too. Because it's not their domain. Because big ideas belong to those with PhDs and labcoats and bowties.

Malcolm Gladwell, that wild-haired Canadian theorist-storyteller, serves us in the same way. His books grapple with some monster ideas: how do trends disseminate through a society? what is behind the power of our instinct? what is the context in which genius flourishes? And while I can't make a definitive pronouncement one way or another or his methodologies (they seem well laid out, thoughtful, and mostly logical to me), I offer the defense that anyone who asks the masses to consider and examine bigger ideas than they might not otherwise contemplate is always worth the price of admission. Or at least an Amazon delivery.

big theory followthrough, idea festival, analog/digital

2008-09-29T16:43:00.000-07:00

Realizing that I am an intermittent (read: sh---y) blogger, I'm berating myself on my own site. Deservedly so. How about a little followthrough? How about ongoing entries? How about it, bro? Yeesh.

I have an ongoing hypothesis about social networking (the social surrogate theory) which needs a framework and more entries around the topics I've outlined for myself. Like many of my thoughts and hypotheses, I bore myself to tears when I don't lay the whole thing out and then I move on to the next idea bouncing around in my head. This is known as Topical A.D.D. And I've got it. It's one reason why I'm strong at brainstorming and poor at laying out multi-annual strategies on a month by month basis. So, I'm sure I've got more to add to the SST, but it might have to get picked up after being away from it for a while.

Went to Idea Festival in Louisville, KY. This will probably be the subject of one or two blog entries in a row (staring tonight? tomorrow? soon.). I just didn't want to do a straight up "here's what the amazing speakers said at Idea Festival 2008" blog entry. I'm more inclined to mull over what I heard and then offer up some thinking about how it will impact me. Suffice it to say, though. Pretty cool festival. Lots of topics. Lots of (dare I say) ideas. Hopefully, I'll have something interesting to say about it all in the upcoming entries.

Lastly, I've been noticing how attached to my iPhone I've become. I can't seem to take a bus ride, or a car ride, or even a walk to the local caffe without checking mail, twitter, facebook, playing a game, or texting a friend. oh yeah, or making a phone call. I had forgotten it does that too. I have taken to going for walks and repeating a mantra "stay analog. stay analog. stay analog." just so I can appreciate what's going on around me. I am losing myself to the machine. I used to sketch, noodle, write stream of consciousness, all kinds of things in my Moleskine. Now instead of contemplating nature, I am taking a quick picture to embed via twitpic. It's a little sad. Anyway, I am thinking of doing a walk-a-thon or some kind of sponsored event to get myself off the device. Stay analog. Stay analog.

on the concept of Intimacy - (part 3)

2008-08-26T23:29:00.000-07:00

Initially, I proposed the use of the term “intimacy” to describe digital connectedness to a roomful of my colleagues. “Why not ‘friendship’, ‘rapport’ or ‘togetherness’?” they asked. I think that what I observe to exist in the online world is the search for something of a kind of closeness that is a level deeper than simple affinity. Intimacy may not be what is commonly achieved in the digital world, but I think it is what is sought.

Certainly for some, the desire remains to be a collector of sorts. The goal in these cases is built on discovering how many friends or followers or connections (or whatever the appropriate platform vernacular might be) one can obtain. That’s always been my hang up with MySpace – it always felt like volume was the driver. It didn’t seem to mimic my own reality of finding a smaller group of people that was predicated on shared commonalities. That in real life (using the term relatively), humans strive to find intimacy – close familiarity that reaches beyond facial identification, name recall, or the automatic, empty exchange of head nods and how-do-you-do’s in a workplace hallway.

I was unashamedly in a men’s a cappella group in college, the Tufts Beelzebubs. I describe these people as my brothers, even today. We were notoriously close. When asked what the difference was between my Bub brethren and the campus fraternity scene, I was struck at the obviousness of the answer. We were brought together for a common purpose – we all believe in fun through song. We weren’t just seeking out quantity of connections, we were limited in capacity, but the depth of connection increased exponentially because of a shared purpose, interest, and idea (that and khakis, jackets and ties).

The phenomenon of intimacy in the digital space works, I believe in much the same way. People using the social web have a deep need to create profound personal connections with their communities based on a handful of drivers: likeminded thinking, shared content, musical tastes, or common experiences. It is when online social selves are allowed the opportunity to discover what their web counterparts are all about that they actually create a deep connective bond. An intimacy. This is why I have fallen so hard for Twitter. I have found a group of people that I follow based on watching them think their thoughts “out loud”, and then decide whom I’d like to reach out to because I think we share a sense of humor, a perspective on the industry, a political viewpoint, a common ground. It is (again) why some sites don’t offer much beyond a means of finding old friends or collecting a digital Rolodex. This concept has been discussed here and there online, but I had a great discussion about it with @abfdc and @tfrommer, which was captured nicely (and thankfully not as verbosely as I clearly would have done it) here.

As we create new social platforms, sites, and online communities, I think we will find that the most successful ones of the lot are the ones that encourage and enable the opportunity to discover each other as similarly as we do in the analog world – as beings with nuanced thoughts, sensibilities and tastes seeking intimacy with others who offer complementary qualities, beliefs and purposes.

This is already too long, but I wanted to make mention of tangential thinking that relates to the topic of intimacy of this kind.

Illusion
Just as we can find great connections with likeminded folks online, it would be impossible to have this discussion without recognizing the antithetical at play here. For as much as there’s depth of intimacy to be found online, there is without a doubt a major amount of illusion at play as well. The truth is, despite the great democratization of voice the Internet enables, we still create a hierarchical, celebrity-system of digital personalities. Within that mistaken fantasy that we’ve all got the same sized digital megaphone, lies the difficulty that - with such ease of access comes an assumed closeness where there probably isn’t one. The open entry to our digital heroes via blog comment pages, online forums, or yes, my vaunted Twitter, create the illusion of connection, of intimacy. We believe that in that comment/exchange/response that we are securing the attentions and affections of other members of this online tribe, when the reality is that it is often much more fleeting than that, and as with all things, time and consistency remain the best indicators of the truest connections.

Another part of that illusion of intimacy is expressed through a certain amount of voyeurism. We feel that we know certain personalities so we like to watch the tête-à-tête, the back and forth of witty barbs. There’s a safety in just watching from a safe distance as people engage in one-upmanship and juicy banter. We’re not a part of the conversation (or maybe we dare to engage here and there), but the digital world allows us to be privy to whichever intimacies we stumble upon that day.

Closeness in the comments space (or, anonymity-enabled honesty)
Michael Wesch points this out in his wonderful address to the Library of Congress, but it truly is fascinating. The most interesting dialogue happening online is often found in the comments section after an article or blog entry. Most interesting or most degenerative? I’m not sure which is more consistently accurate. Sadly, my best guess is the latter. But the point is in watching how base feelings become quickly escalated and expressed in these end sections of a webpage. And yes, Wesch specifically calls out the common radical insult escalation game that gets played out, but I think there’s an implied intimacy here as well. One that allows a person to be as explicit as he or she chooses, with whatever degree of force or opinion they wish, with virtually no repercussion to deal with (perhaps an incoming barrage of assaulting messages). It is fascinating however, to consider the boldness that is found online. I link this with a different kind of intimacy, but a form of intimacy nonetheless. This one isn’t seeking connection, it is an intimacy of allowance, of emboldened spirits based on the closeness the Internet affords.

If you’re still here, I love ya. Thanks for hearing me out. As always, I’m looking for your reactions, additions, and corrections. Agree or disagree, my guess is that we’ve shared something here. Haven’t we?

on the concept of Identity - (part 2)

2008-08-12T14:32:00.001-07:00

...as opposed to persona

The important role of identity in the social network space seems obvious and unquestionable. Who we are, who others perceive us to be, how we want others to perceive us, how we want to perceive ourselves. There is a hinge, it seems, on the role of perception. And a spectrum of truth against which that perception is focused. Much has been written about online identities. Most eloquently might be Diana Kimball's take on it:

We build up our personal online identities, in large part, through the detritus we automatically leave behind: pictures we wanted others to see, articles we wanted others to read. Online identity is a very weird idea. It hinges on faith in honesty: if identity implies authenticity, then the information that helps to construct it cannot be false. But online identities are definitely constructed in other ways. They constitute the internet’s built environment: the structures we can see and study, and whose construction we can interrogate for meaning and consequence. These structures are in some ways completely under the owner’s control, and in others complete out of it.

There is a lot to take in here. I encourage you to re-read the quote.

The first part observes that it is our leave-behinds that define who we are. The moments of "check this out" or "some pics I found". It leaves me to wonder if we actively construct our online selves, or if identity is a by-product of engagement. Before responding to that, we must decide if we either buy into the idea that a person's first engagement in the digital social space is done purposefully or casually. Do people enter onto (let's say) facebook in a state of apathy, daring the online world to show them what's out there, or is there some intention around joining/signing up? If the latter is true, which I presume it is - at least for those who stick with whatever platform they've chosen, we have to believe that with intention comes awareness. And within awareness we find identity.

It is this awareness that leads to Ms. Kimball's last sentence:

These structures are in some ways completely under the owner’s control, and in others complete out of it.

Our self-awareness leads directly to how we present ourselves. I surmise that many start off trying to play a persona that is carefully constructed. Online, anything is possible. It's the neoclassic image of a person using false representations of themselves to appear more attractive on that great bastion of truth, the online dating site. Because somewhere in our minds, in our egos, perhaps in our most frustrated and desperate selves, we believe that the internet will allow us, will afford us the opportunity to become better than we think of our current self-assessment. But the key element in the construction of a social identity is time.

I think we grow into our authenticity. I think time is the great seeker in the game of identity hide and seek. It will always find us. We might begin our venture into the social networking world with the idea that we will become someone or something we wish for ourselves. But the more time we spend online, the more messages we write, pictures we share, dialogs we have, comments we make, the greater the chance that our true selves take over where the guise of a persona falters. The more we become certain of ourselves as individuals, the easier it becomes to maintain consistency of character. Or the more of our true feelings, thoughts, beliefs, and opinions become revealed to the communities we enter.

So where does that leave us? Have I talked in circles here? I often do. It's part of what makes me Me. I think the final thought on identity at this point is that identity is not something we construct. It is something that emerges organically the more time we spend engaging in social spheres, be they digital or analog.

The Social Surrogate Theory - (part 1)

2008-08-07T09:03:00.000-07:00

...in which I pose the general hypothesis

I was inspired by Michael Wesch's ethnographic introduction to the Library of Congress (thanks for sending it around, Piers). Inspired, that is, to do a little more thinking out loud about social networks and why they matter so much in our society. I'm working on a hypothesis. I haven't quite reached the crux of what I'm searching for, but I feel I'm close.

I pose this idea, knowing that others have probably written multiple dissertations on the subject, not to mention books, blogs, and blah blah blah... If you're one of those people, my interest in the analog social impact of digital social networks is earnest. I'm open to references to read, conflicting points of view, research that already exists, and even an old fashioned "why don't you leave this to the experts" smackdown.

Here's the basic premise:

Social networks are a surrogate means of making authentic connections with other people. They are the natural outcome of a world with a dramatic reliance on machines and technology. As society moves into this culture of "togetherness through isolation", social networks are an enabling force that provide a simulation of the rich physical forms of human connection that we have lost our ability to cultivate through direct means.

Although I think this sounds a little like the diary entry of a erudite luddite, I am deeply, sometimes I think unhealthily, engaged in the daily (nay, hourly) use of a handful of these precious media.

My intention is to break down the thematic pillars of what social networking provides in parallel to the human experience. The next handful of entries will look at these, one theme at a time. My working list considers the concepts of: identity, immediacy, intimacy, possibility, advocacy, community, democracy, control, escape, and enjoyment.

As always, feel free to jump in and add direction, notes, your thinking, questions, or better insights.

Bulls---!

2008-07-23T21:07:00.000-07:00

I was in a client meeting in which they briefed us about a new project and a term came up which irked me to no end. It wasn’t the first time, and I think that’s why I cringed at its utterance. Client X described the project target by saying, “we’re going after a target of 18-54 year olds, with a bullseye target of 21-34”.

As you read that, are you noticing what I’m noticing, or have you become immune to the inanity of this definition? It would be understandable. I hadn’t heard this “bullseye” idea until a couple of years ago and now I’m hearing it more and more. My problems with the bullseye notion are plenty, but let’s use the above example as our case study.

Point 1: 18-54 year olds is not a target definition, it is a massive cross-section of the general population. I have railed against using demography to outline consumers previously (check that here), and aside from the arguments made there, which basically state how we are products of our thoughts, actions, interests, and geographies more than our birth certificates, what irks me here is the notion that with this broad age range, zero nuance is taken into consideration. Essentially, Client X is telling me, “we imagine our product will be relevant for every adult north of high school and south of early retirement.” No. Way. I think we can all agree that a) in an ideal world, we’d have products that appealed to that kind of an age range and b) it has to be understood that by pinpointing a target (based on whatever factors you choose, but hopefully choosing something more to do with their reaction to a receding hairline and less about the year they began losing it), you will undoubtedly reach people you weren’t expecting to reach.

When Axe shows the guy picking up the girl in the convenience store, it is clearly aimed at (in bland demographic terms) 18-24 year old men. BUT, I think we can assume that somewhere out there, a mid-30’s guy, or a woman, or even a spry septuagenarian, might see that same commercial and feel it captures something about them too. No communication ever only reaches the “target” it always stretches beyond, even to a remarkable few.

My point simply being that you don’t need the big fat range of every adult in the Western Hemisphere. We get it. You’re hoping to reach a lot of people. Which brings us to

Point 2: Please help us rid the world of jargon. The last thing advertisers and marketing departments need is another buzzword. Catchphrases sadly sell books and draw attention, but they also push consumers further away from products and corroborate the notion that this is an industry of snake oil salesmen and sinister doubletalkers. Skip the new parlance, trust that simple, specific language will communicate everything you hoped and more, and get to who you really want to focus on. Just tell us.

Bullseye targeting is a lazy way to seem like you’re thinking deeper than you really are. I think it’s a trick someone came up with to make it appear as though they were working much harder than they were. That there was great understanding of consumer truth, when really it’s just saying “we looked at everyone and now we want to focus on this smaller group”. Which is what you’re doing if you just skip the “bulls---“ and get to the point.

if a tree Twitters in the woods…

2008-06-25T10:16:00.000-07:00

The combination of a great discussion the other day and my multiple explanations to creatives and clients alike to led me back to the question “why Twitter”?

Let the record show from the outset that when it comes to twittering, I’m all for it. I’ll tweet everything from my whereabouts to the inane to the cryptic. You can follow me here. But why? To what end?

I’ve been describing to the uninitiated (or semi-familiar) that Twitter is the best of the 4 worlds of: SMS (for the purpose of conversation), blogging (for the provision of intriguing content), social networking (for the inclusion of community), and most importantly, IM (for the immediacy). Without any one of these, Twitter would not be as important or impactful. Add in the constraint of messaging in 140 words or less, and you’ve got yourself a fun little gaming in the mix as well.

In my conversation with Ray, I asked, “if the idea is just to tell a close group of friends what you’re up to, why not send out an email? Isn’t the group communication function already covered?” What we realized is that there is an important element of voyeurism to Twitter that may be secondary, but is critical. There is a sense that somebody might hear my words, or might respond, or might (gulp) follow me. But then that last part is nullified by vast number of Twitterers who, like a teen newly exploring MySpace, is more interested in collecting people than actually listening to them. Which is valid, I suppose. I try not judge, although for the record, I don’t understand the practice. It seems pointless. (But, this is coming from the guy who stood in line for 12 hours when Tim Burton’s Batman opened, wearing a Joker T-shirt and getting upset that it had been spilled on. So my credibility rating on why teens do what they do is probably zero.)

The point is this: there is a part of the act of twittering that is a bit desperate, isn’t there? The kind of “somebody pay attention to me!” whining or “know it all-ness/my opinion matters” that nobody liked when we were kids. Which isn’t to say many comments aren’t interesting, but if I was to step back from it, I’m not really convinced that anybody really cares that my kids are still awake, or that I’m sitting in an aisle seat today, or that KEXP’s live streaming is piss poor. So there’s absolutely a part of me that uses Twitter for the hope of acceptance. That one of the tastemakers might single out one of my tweets and choose to comment back with an “@mrgingold blah blah blah me too blah blah blah good one, dude blah blah blah”.

Which brings us to another social ramification of Twitter that I find fascinating. Supposedly, in the not-to-long-ago, we went through a big social trend of Curator-ism. You know what I’m talking about, it was the Oprah phenomenon. The phenomenon that we hold people up in our society and look to them to help us choose what products, services, and people we should be purchasing, using, or supporting. But the Millennium was supposedly an end of that time, a welcoming of self-selection. The “iEra” in which I would pick for myself what, when, who, where, and how.

But Twittering is revealing itself to be more of the same Curator-ism, in a digital medium. We have our @PSFKs, @armano’s, @heyitsnoah’s that we follow and look to. These are the people we hope will notice our own tweets and comment or reply. They are the social media Oprahs. We look for their acceptance and are tickled at their recognition. Maybe this is just me. Maybe what I’ve done is revealed my own insecurities and shortcomings. My own small, sad need to be heard or singled out or told “that was what I was thinking too” by the people whose opinions I respect. If that’s the case, and I’m alone in this, I may have to reassess why I Twitter and blog. But I think there may be a handful of you out there who have a similar hope. Different “@_____” perhaps, but the same endgame.

And that is the beauty of Twitter. While I could never in a million years get Oprah to hear my voice, it’s possible to speak directly to anybody who Twitters. The medium is being used the way it’s meant to be used – as a great democratizer of opinions and thoughts. Nobody might care to reply, but when you put your 140 words or less out there, there’s the distinct possibility that somebody somewhere might connect with what you have to say.

And so I leave you with the thought: "now's a good time for coffee and caloric pastries". Care to reply?

once more unto the breach, dear friends

2008-06-25T10:11:00.000-07:00

once more.

i've decided to give the hogwash one more go. i'm feeling a little like my blogging experiment has mostly been just for me and can't decide if it's self-indulgent, self-delusional, self-serving, or just undiscovered.

whatever it's been, i've admittedly been three kinds of sucky when it comes to consistency. and so, as i approach my bloggiversary, i'm going to give it one more try for some healthy blog activity.

if you've been reading, i appreciate it. wish me luck. feel free to comment openly.

in search of authentic

2008-05-04T20:13:00.000-07:00

Aki Spicer wrote a great bit on his musings from ROFLCon that really got me thinking. The last bit of his entry asks the reader to consider the future of "authentic". In my estimation, the word has, ostensibly, lost its meaning (much as has "green", "savvy", and "integrated").

Wanting to press a bit more on the topic, I looked up the word (using my MacBook dashboard). I was intrigued, as the first offering reads: "of undisputed origin". That's powerful stuff. Undisputed. Meaning, there can be no mistake about it. However, the watering down and adverspanking of this word is more in line with the second entry: "made or done in the traditional or original way, or in a way that faithfully resembles an original.” Sad, really. You can see, this is authenticity’s downfall. Essentially, this second definiton strikes the power of the first one useless. It says “faithfully resembles an original”. Meaning: “yeah, it’s close enough.”

With brands, we’re all telling our clients to “be authentic.” I can even recall telling a brand that one of their core “pillars” should be (you guessed it): Authenticity. In reality, every company should have authenticity at its core. And they all do. Except when they don’t. As company’s grow, expand, or look too much at what, where, and how the competition is doing their thing, brands lose touch with what they’re about. Or, why they were started in the first place. The role Authenticity plays is in what makes them (and this is where you’re BAM SMACK on it, Aki), human. It is the humanness of a brand that makes it an undisputed original.

It’s kind of flawed to suggest a brand should be more human, isn’t it? It’s a bit unfair. What is it that makes (or could make) a brand more human? As planners, our job is to uncover that very truth. We’re not always successful. The more we approach the work with an open and humble sense of curiosity, driving us to discover the answer to that question, the better the result. Open. Humble. Fallible. It’s what makes a planner human. And thus, relatable. And authentic. And successful. (NOTE: if all it took for a planner to be seen as successful were humbleness and fallibility, we’d all be long unemployed. I merely postulate that in addition to a hopefully insightful, trend-fueled, innovative mind, it would only be helpful for a planner to approach each project with a certain willingness to not know the answers and to reduce the abundance of high-falutin’, all-knowing platitudes and condescension that have plagued and tainted the role of the planner – at least in the US.)

So in the end, I think yes, the word authenticity, in its current “close enough to the original” state, is worthless. But, true authenticity is not something that needs to be learned by a brand, it is something that needs to be preserved.

you've been pownced

2008-04-04T14:18:00.000-07:00

Had a good conversation with friends today. We were discussing the role of connections via social networking sites. The sheer number of networks that have come and gone, or come and don't get used or come and get used and get lost... it's insane. I had postulated that although I "belong" to a number of these networks, when it comes down to it, I only use three.

One is for networking. I build as many connections as I can, I welcome all who find me there.

One is for connecting. I get in touch with old acquaintances, stay in touch with friends, and am careful who I invite within that domain.

One is for dialogue. Spontaneous thoughts, insights, and delights.

And yet, I, like many, am a marked man. Discovered by a friend of a friend of my friend and now they want nothing more than to be connected. But to what end? To take an extra space in a list of names? To have a profile picture collecting virtual dust on my personal page? My hang up with MySpace (for me) was that it was all about numbers. So concerned with how many. It felt entirely pointless. Not everyone approaches it that way, but it feels embedded in the MySpace culture. So, when, say... Ed Cramley, who graduated high school 3 years after I did finds me and wants to be pals, I draw a line. Which is rude, isn't it? What harm would it be to have Ed listed amongst my friends? Well it feels entirely insincere to have Ed's picture listed amongst my "friends". I didn't know him a decade ago, I don't know him today... people aren't for collecting. So I ignore the invitation. Repeatedly, if necessary. Which, again, doesn't do much as far as building karma points.

So we came up with a plan today. A widget or app needs to be built (I'm nominating Phil) that acts as both a personal firewall and a social re-router. It needs to look at the spam-friends (those like Ed Cramley who serve no real purpose in my life at all) and filter them out, rather than rudely, to one of the other dozen social networks that I joined when I was trying them all on for size, and invites Ed Cramley to be my friend over there.

It's a kind of gentle breakup instead of a harsh "no thanks". A kind of deprioritization of social networks. I don't want you near my facebook account, so I'll re-route you to be "friends" with me over on Plaxo Pulse. Everyone happy? Perfect.

Hang on, I just got a reply from someone I haven't been in touch with from undergrad...sonuvabitch...I've just been Y!Mashed.

a method to the madness

2008-03-25T15:17:00.000-07:00

As a kid growing up in Syracuse, NY, University sports were everything. Our family had season tickets to basketball and football, and we were even known to cheer for the lacrosse team, despite the fact that we all sucked at the sport.

But something happened on the way to adulthood. My beloved Tufts University Jumbos took the spirit and tradition of raging championship-at-all-costs mentality away and replaced it with a joyful love of collegiate a cappella music and a respect for literature. The shame. The horror. I know.

Back then, the idea of filling out a bracket was a no-brainer. Through high school I was a king of useless data about how a Big East team would do against an ACC squad and had a distinct logic as to why certain teams couldn't be beat and knew the assists per game of the starting point guard from each Cinderella squad psyched to be slotted in "the Dance" as a 15 seed.

Fast forward to last week. At the ad agency where I work, one of the creatives sent around an email (which wound up in my junk mail folder) the day before brackets were due and for $5, I agreed to fill one out and be part of the office pool. Now, I know it's been a crazy tourney for many people, but never have I spent such little time filling out a bracket, never have I entered a pool with such little information about the teams at play (Davidson?!?!? seriously???), and, most importantly, never had I had so little invested in the outcome. Which begs the question: why do it? Why play? Why waste the $5 that could have gone toward an afternoon's triple tall americano from Vivace?

Here's why. It's quite beautiful really. March Madness and the bracketology that ensues is one of the last bastions of true camaraderie. People who don't know each other are talking about picks, predictions, shared disappointments, and fantastic finishes. We find ourselves purposely and overtly eavesdropping on conversations held in lines at banks, bus stops, and grocery stores. We want to be a part of the discussion. There's a primitive social aspect to March Madness. It has equal impact both nationally and locally. So I played to be a part of the conversation. I threw my money down the drain (G'town, Duke, UConn, Clemson) and did it with a smile on my face knowing that I wasn't putting money down to win, I was putting money down to participate.

And that's the experiential ingredient missing from much of life's newer events. The idea that we, as citizens, crave being active participants in something, in anything. We need to be a part of something. It's been argued before that as our world has become more digitized, so too have we seen an increase in the desire and need to collect real experiences. The NCAA tournament is a great example of yes, a great shared, collective participatory event. But also, of a social need that transcends the event itself. A reminder that even if you don't know the difference between a Cardinal from Louisville (bird) or Stanford (color), you can still be a part of something special, still be a part of the Madness.

Jill Bolte Taylor at TED

2008-03-12T16:49:00.000-07:00

Just watch below...and choose to go right.

You'll see.

on social energy

2008-03-09T22:13:00.000-07:00

Working on a project these days that has me thinking a lot about energy. At my last job, that would probably have been a sentence about Casella Waste Systems and the patented processes of energeneration. But this is a new month, a new creative agency, a new outlook. And so, with the days of Vermont-based, resource management behind me, I open up a new chapter on the very idea of energy. Let's call it the subtle movement from natural resources to social energy.

This time, I'm looking at the almighty need for the afternoon buzz. Why do college kids gravitate towards coffeehouses? Or do they at all? Is there another source for regenerating personal energy altogether? Basically, what constitutes and what drives energy for college-aged kids?

I generated a handful of hypotheses before really looking into it. And when I say "really looking into it", I mean doing what is known in the Plannerworld as "Ghetto Research" in which I spent the afternoon around the UW campus, hanging out at a couple of Starbucks (and one convenience store - a sore subject and fodder perhaps for a diatribe of its own) and asking students their thoughts on the subject at hand.

Here's what I learned: much like the chicken and the egg, I couldn't get a clear answer as to whether or not kids cam

e out to Starbucks a) to hang out, and thus, being at a coffeehouse, ordered the house special; or b) felt they needed an afternoon coffee, and thus, with an awareness of caffeine deficiency, went to the nearest green mermaid shoppe. Put more simply, did students want a place to hang out or did they want a coffee?

To add a twist of purported advanced thinking to the question, is today's college student energized by a chemical or by socialization? A few of the kids I spoke to were not drinking coffee drinks at all, but either water or tea. However, regardless of what was in the cup, I heard many times over that the energy came from the conversations they were having with friends. It was the engagement that created the energy. And so one would conclude that the answer to the question of energy source would be socialization, not chemical.

And yet...

They were in a Starbucks. And if socialization were all that were needed to avoid this a

fternoon lull, the

y could just as easily been at a bookstore, a record shop, a street corner, a falafel stand, etc. But as I walked down the street, those businesses were practically empty. The Starbucks was most decidedly not. It was overflowing with not enough seating to supply the demand. There was a line you joined within millimeters of opening the door.

So what's the answer? Where do I fall out on this subject? It doesn't take a scientist to intuit the impact a stimulant has on the body's system (although it does take one to systematically prove it). And so ignoring the obvious effect an afternoon coffee would have on a 20 yr old's chemistry would be folly. At the same time (and a sociologist or anthropologist could speak with much more clarity on the appropriate theory in place here), the social phenomenon of eneregeneration (Arlene, I couldn't resist), meaning, regenerating energy from a natural resource, is clearly at play here. The environment that Starbucks and many other coffeehouses have historically provided (e.g. plush chairs, warm wooden floors, gentle mood lighting, perhaps a couch or a fireplace...) create the opportunity to sit comfortably face to face with a friend and connect. It is within that moment of connection that, for many people, the batteries get recharged. The more lively the conversation, the more energized the bodies engaged.

Of course, I always found a nice nap works too.

ringing in the new year

2008-01-04T10:13:00.000-08:00

I've been thinking about this post for a while now. As a bus rider, I have had many of my favorite observations on the daily commute, be it to or fro. A few weeks ago, a cell phone rang on the way in to work, and despite my best efforts, I couldn't help but to play name that tune. It was, after a couple of bars, unmistakably the strains of that classic Hall and Oates' ditty, "Private Eyes". Do not misunderstand me, I actually have H&O Greatest Hits album, "Rock n' Soul" in my iTunes library, so I do not question their musicianship, nor their appropriate place in pop history. It is what happened next that is the basis for this entry.

The woman, scrambled to find the source of the melody, pained look on her face, hoping to end the embarrassment of her song selection in this most public and judgmental of forums. With much ado, she found the phone in her warehouse of a purse and stopped the ringtone.

My question is: if she was going to suffer such shame over the audio selection, why did she pick it in the first place? And she is not alone. I have seen this phenomenon countless times, yes on the bus, but also at work, coffeehouses, and other public spaces. People expressing externally the internal groan of "yes, that's really the song I picked for my ringtone."

Which begs the further question: is your ringtone a reflection of who you are, who you believe yourself to be, or who you'd like the world to perceive you to be? For some, a ringtone is what it is meant to be, a way to indicate you have a phone call. BUT, if you're going to customize your cell's sound functions, then you've obviously made the very conscious, very self-aware decision that your ringtone means something just a bit more. So, why pick something which will elicit anything less than joy and/or pride when it rings? If the woman had smiled at the Hall and Oates song, or given it an extra beat before turning it off, I'd have thought to myself, "that's pretty damn cool." Instead, I joined her in her emotional self-flagellation, and thought quite simply: "lame."

On a larger scale, so many products and services tout the idea of "customization" or "make it your own" and I think, as a citizenry, we are delighted to seize our own uniqueness where we can, thrilled to finally be supported, not ridiculed, when we order things "on the side" (or whatever might be the applicable "my way" form or functionality). However, the system fails us if we don't pick things honestly. Or, perhaps it's not about honesty, it's about comfort. Or perhaps it is neither, but rather, recognizing the platform of our customization, and having the wherewithal to discern said platform's availability to public scrutiny. Any way you slice it, it boils down to being true to yourself in life's decisions. (someone call Bill Shakespeare, there's something in that) Even the little ones.

P.S.: my ringer is set to Dave Brubeck's "Blue Rondo a la Turk". I'm not entirely sure what that says about me when folks here it ring, but I'll tell ya, it's a great song from a great album, and I tend to let it ring just a little longer than I should when someone calls. Just in case anyone's listening.

Impact vs. Inclusion

2007-12-19T09:30:00.000-08:00

So, I've recently been hearing this phrase bouncing around our truly brilliant media department: Impact Media. It's not that I don't like the phrase, I do. It's very hip sounding. Easy to glom onto. Here's the problem. I don't agree with it. I know that in the world of advertising we are always tasked with "breaking through", with "having an impact". Some agencies refer to this as "disruptive media".

This past year, in order to promote McDonald's iced coffee, our creative team put to-go mugs reading "cold is coming" inside ice blocks and in the wee small hours of the morning left them in the middle of downtown Seattle. Very cool. The press picked this up (of course), people walked around them, took pictures, etc. Was this guerrilla tactic "impact media"? I think it qualifies based on my loose understanding of the jargon.

But the problem comes with the encouragement of all teams to come up with "impact" tactics. I think there's an opportunity missed. Maybe it's just semantics, but I think rather than coming up with ideas that shock and awe, we should be creating ideas that delight and surprise (endless praise & big thanks, Bruce Mau). I think we should be encouraging our creative teams to discover ways of making citizens (note: not consumers) want to be part of the experience. And I don't mean by "opting-in" to email bombardment. I mean getting people to want to find your product or service, and hunger to be a part of it. Experientially. Sensorily. As Mike Murphy from Facebook said at APG, "don't be disruptive, be inclusive."

Lastly, I think inclusivity is the tactic most overlooked and misunderstood by creative and media (and yes, absolutely, positively) planning departments. I believe if we're defining new media, we mustn't forget that the key element to the way people engage with the world feeds off of the notion of personal choice and high personal stakes. Not in a superficial "what's in it for me?" way, but in a way that clearly reaches out to the values and behaviors that are important to the engaged citizen. Remember that aside from its current online implication, the word "interactive" means creating a give and take, communicative relationship between user and product. A two-way street if you will that goes beyond making an impact, it creates a relationship, a bond. We should aim for tactics and experiences that don't just "wow" people, but ones that ask for their participation (be it to touch, watch, share, taste...). Calling all advertisers, calling all clients: Now is the time for Inclusive Media.

Is Photography Dead?

2007-12-11T11:30:00.000-08:00

Normally, I'm not a Newsweek guy, I'm a TIME guy. But on a long trip to Rutland, VT, I picked up a copy of the "other" news reader and other than discovering a heavy commitment to experts from Harvard every other page (there are other reputable Universities, folks), I was really taken by a smart, insightful article by Peter Plagens entitled, "Is Photography Dead?"

In it, Plagens eloquently points out that the 21st century generation of photographers, for all their digital, Photoshopping, fabricated innovations and perfection have lost the honesty that the first photographers were able to capture using the medium. It's a great point. One that is linked to the controversial digital backlash. Is the world, in its pursuit of ease and technological advancement, becoming detrimentally removed from the idea of humanism? There is a fine line between social connectivity as we know it now and soulful, corporeal connection, or human to human contact.

Let me give one extended quote from the article:

"Digitalization has made much of art photography's vast variety possible. But it's also a major reason that, 25 years after the technology exploded what photography could do and be, the medium seems to have lost its soul. Film photography's artistic cachet was always that no matter how much darkroom fiddling someone added to a photograph, the picture was, at its core, a record of something real that occurred in front of the camera. A digital photograph, on the other hand, can be a Photoshop fairy tale, containing only a tiny trace of a small fragment of reality. By now, we've witnessed all the magical morphing and seen all the clever tricks that have turned so many photographers—formerly bearers of truth—into conjurers of fiction. It's hard to say "gee whiz" anymore."

So what say you? Do we have the ability to capture truth anymore from this medium? Can we look to photographs to capture moments for us the way we once did, or have the expectations already been set that photography is now a manipulated rendering (sometimes remarkably so) of the vivid imagination of the photographer?

me and Malcolm are back in action

2007-12-11T11:23:00.000-08:00

(crickets chirping. chirping.)

Yes, much like Malcolm Gladwell, I am back from having taken a bit of a hiatus from the ol' blog. The main differences are listed below:

1) I was not working on a new book. He was.
2) Many eager thought leaders rejoiced over his triumphant return. My blog has had a total of 3 comments.
3) Gladwell is fun to say. Gingold is gutteral and could potentially hurt a dry throat.

Regardless of these minor differences, the Hogwash will flow once again. Be prepared and enjoy.

lovesong for the cassette

2007-10-29T16:55:00.000-07:00

I was going through our storage locker a handful of weeks ago. Came across an old tape, a cassette to be painfully accurate. It was a live concert of my friend, Matt Trowbridge (formerly "Trowy", now Dr. Matthew Trowbridge) performing at Eddie's Attic in Decatur, GA. Back in the day, Dr. Trowbridge was a gifted singer/songwriter (I'm sure he still plays. I'm certain. Well, hopeful.) and at my insistence had given me a copy of this show he'd done. A relatively quick set of 7 or 8 songs, but it's gold. It's worth it just to listen to the earnestness of the introductions.

Anyway, I found the tape and have played it a number of times since its resurrection, but it got me thinking about the idea of tapes and specifically of "mixes" and the craft of making a great mix tape. In the iTuned mp3 world we live in now, making a mix tape requires almost nothing of the mixer. It's literally dragging tracks from a library to a folder and then fiddling with the order. But such was not the case 15 years ago, when putting together a tape for friends, or a girl, or as catharsis for yourself actually required commitment.

My process was (and still is to some degree) always the same. First of all, there was a need to understand the rules (spins on which can be found here and here). My rules are simple:

no repeat artists - there's enough great music out there that you should never need to rely on one band twice per mix
think about variety and experiential arc - I don't prescribe to fast fast fast. slow slow slow. I listen to the ending of one track before finalizing the next one. It's got to flow. That might mean strings to strings or drumbeat to drumbeat or it might be a HUGE wake-up after an earned moment of silence. It just has to feel right.
stay away from compilations - they are for cheaters. no mixes should be stolen. Yes, the soundtrack to Garden State is great. But don't copy half the songs and give them to me as your thoughtful contribution.
don't give up - if you're tired of the process, go do something else and then come back to it. It's an artistic process. It requires something of you. Push though it or know your limits, but don't just stop and don't just throw six Stevie Wonder tracks on the end because you know they're killer.

And it is with those things in mind that I make my list. I would go through all my tapes and 45s and make a giant list of all the tracks I loved for that mix, and note the speed (fast, slow, med) and play time when possible (you've got to be aware of what you can fit on one side of a 90 minute tape). Then you start planning possible playlists. Each side is its own playlist. Each side must be considered separately. The two sides should connect from the standpoint of mood, but it's like the band came back from a break and had to get the crowd from moment one again.

Again, contrast that to today when a decent playlist takes maybe a couple of hours. It's still fun, but not nearly as meaningful. The connection to the mix is gone. Not to the music, there's an important distinction. The music is still moving, engrossing, alive, but the time, the pain, the song that was longer than you thought and got cut off, the starting over, the ruined tape because somebody hit record, the hours of planning and planning and care...they are lost in the drag-and-click model - gone the way of the cassettes that get locked up in storage lockers and lost to garbage cans.

One step further would be to look at all artistic processes. The value is coming back around for artisans. A hand-made chest of drawers. Personally tailored clothing. Original pottery. Photos taken and framed by someone you know. These things have value not just because they are "one of a kind", but because being "one of a kind" usually means that somebody poured their heart, energy, and attention into the construction of that object. I think we need more of those. Lots more. It's worth the extra time.

Now, if we could only get it all to fit neatly on side B.

"J" Joe Jeans and his Jellybeans

2007-10-22T15:20:00.001-07:00

Watched a Sesame Street alphabet video with my 4 year old this weekend. I haven't stopped singing this little ditty since.

I have long been obsessed with the genius of Jim Henson. On college entrance essays he was consistently included within my responses to: "who you'd invite to dinner/who would you like to meet living, dead, or fictional"? As I watch this video now, the power of it hits me on a handful of levels.

Level One: nostalgia. I'll tell you there's just something about the quality of those voices. It's like coming home. Voices that change only very slightly regardless of the muppet they're representing. Those are the voices of my childhood. It doesn't take much to put me back in front of the television as a 6 year old in our old house on Sycamore Terrace.

Level Two: staying power. This video is from 1971. My daughter is watching it for the first time and loves it. The song literally transcends time. Like much of Henson's work, although appearing (and musically being rooted) within its distinct decade, the heart, the lesson, the crux of what's on display is absolutely timeless.

Level Three: talk to kids/talk to adults. Long before the Simpsons and Family Guy laid claim to the notion of appealing to kids through the medium (cartoons or puppets) while appealing to adults through the subtlety of the writing, Sesame Street and the Muppet Show were all over this. I laugh at an aside Grover throws away in one sketch and the kids laugh because the bald blue dude with the mustache can't get the "numero dos" without it spilling on the floor of the restaurant during the musical number "Granada".

Level Four: education. I am most inspired by the fact that this creativity was all developed in the name of education. As my daughter logically guesses that some words start with "G" rather than "J" (which both have the same phonetic root), I take comfort in "J-Jane jumping down the lane" singing a song about "J".

I guess what it boils down to is my admiration for the ability to use artistry for a greater purpose than selling something. Be it education, green technology, cultural innovation, or social connectivity. Every once in a while something comes along to remind you that once upon a time, someone just got it right.

Offsetting Innovation

2007-10-17T10:25:00.000-07:00

An AdAge video promotes the partnership between Brooklyn Brothers and the Versus TV cable network as being "pioneers" for developing a software program that allows them to track how much tonage of carbon emissions they use on a commercial shoot. The tonage is then offset with a purchase of (I'm guessing here) RECs (or, renewable energy credits).

This is a tricky subject. On the one hand, I applaud the idea of offsets. I am thankful that the desire here with Brooklyn Brothers, Versus TV, and ERM (the London-based enviro-engineering company that helped develop the software) is to take ownership and responsibility of their impact on the environment and, ostensibly, to do something about it.

However, carbon offsets are slowly becoming the e-z pass to corporate guiltlessness. It's like deciding the leaking roof is fixed by putting a bucket underneath the spill rather than fixing the roof.

True innovation would have been to partner not with a software company, but with a hardware company. Instead of figuring out how they could "neutralize" their carbon impact, why not work with someone to develop a camera, an editing suite, heck, how about a food services refrigerator, all that run off of an easily renewable energy source? NOW you've got me standing up and applauding and saying "pioneer".

Again, I preface this by saying that I think the idea of purchasing various offsets is at least a step in the right direction. I think it enables a person to make a gesture of taking responsibility for their (generally unwanted but necessary) eco-unfriendly actions (taking a plane, running exorbitant amounts of energy, etc.). But, I think with the amount of money, power, and leading-edge thinking out there, I think companies should be looking to do more than be able to lay their guilt aside at night. I think it's all too easy for major corporations with large factories or other significant emissions-producing workshops to buy their way to surface-level ecofriendliness.

Where are the leaders? Where are the risk-takers? Where are the dreamers? Build us a better filter, a better smokestack, a better generator, a water-based engine. Partner with those doing this work. Yes, yes, plant trees. Of course. Support solar and wind energies. Do the things that offset the world's emissions. But start making tangible, physical changes in your own backyards. THAT's the kind of pioneering I'm looking for. That would be noteworthy, new, daring, exciting, and dare I say, creative.

Deconstructing Katrina

2007-10-12T11:46:00.001-07:00

I read about The Green Project in GOOD magazine. Definitely worth checking out. Here's the basics:

As New Orleans continues to figure out how to deal with the rubble and destruction brought about by Katrina, The Green Project is a nonprofit organization that offers a solution more sustainable, more valuable than a demolition team coming in and laying waste to the ruins. Instead, they carefully salvage and comb through damaged or collapsed buildings and gather materials (everything from doors, windows, light fixtures, pots, pans, etc.) and resells them in their warehouse store at a low cost to the community. This practice keeps excessive waste out of landfills as well as creating a local economy as well as preserving the flavor of architecture and style from Old New Orleans as the city rebuilds. Brilliant.

The other nonprofit organization I'd like to mention here is The Idea Village. They're an entrepreneurial collective based in New Orleans who work off of the mantra "Trust Your Crazy Ideas". More specifically, they are an economic development consultancy that have basically taken on the role of revitalizing the growth of New Orleans on business, cultural, and social platforms.

I learned about The Idea Village through a facebook group called "Planning for Good" - a collection of strategic planners (and their friends) using their brains to help solve problems for causes and non-profits. The first project listed was a brief asking for ideas on how to promote The Idea Village. Planners worked collaboratively and competitively to send in a strategic vision for how to help The Idea Village from a communications standpoint. I missed the deadline, but it's something I'll keep tabs on and open up to the agency when the next assignment comes out. Or, if you're feeling particularly saucy, give me a ring and I'll make sure you get tapped directly.

the power of the innocuous moment

2007-10-02T13:06:00.000-07:00

Life can really be divided into two categories: the monumental and the innocuous.

Let me explain:

The moments of our lives are either ones that we will stamp as worth remembering, stories we'll share with other people, or times that will be photographed and put on our mantelpieces. They may range from your first kiss to a job promotion to the birth of your children. They are the glorious events that will forever go down in history as having a certain depth of value and meaning.

The other parts of our lives can be categorized as innocuous moments. That is, the insignificant, everyday points of time that make up the majority of our lives, but which, in hindsight, are utterly forgettable. I put a band-aid on a paper cut. I picked a pen from my desk drawer. I shaved.

Here's the interesting part. Despite the fact that we would all love to experience the thrills (or even intense lows) of the monumental moments of life, it is the innocuous moments of life that truly unite us. Who hasn't almost slipped on a patch of ice, (or on a slippery floor, or inside the shower) but caught themselves and then looked around to see if anyone was watching? Those "innocuous" moments connect us on a deeper level than the major life events.

For example, many people have had a wedding. If you tell someone you got married, they are excited for you. Perhaps it brings back memories of their own wedding. But it is the fact that you stood in the mirror retying your bow-tie over and over again that connects the two of you because that's human. It's the moment of fallibility. The moment of imperfection that creates the shared experience, not the event itself.

I was thinking about this idea with regards to advertising. I think advertising has an inverse relationship with life's "memorable vs. innocuous" moments. Simply put, the more "monumental" life's actual moments are represented/recreated through advertising, the less memorable it is in the consumers' eye. AND, the more "innocuous" the life moment, the greater the memorability when put into advertising.

I will offer these two car commercials. In the one, the landscape is sweeping, the road dramatically winding, the footage downright breathtaking. The boredom overwhelming. In the other, VW has literally filmed a series of life's forgettable moments and created an impactful, memorable advertisement.

Daewoo

VW

The idea is that we are, as a society, joined by these small moments of truth. Moments we don't think about at the time, but carry such emotional importance when we see them or hear them replayed by somebody else. It is the notion that we are not alone, that we all have to go through waiting for a bus, slipping through a closing door at the last second by "making ourselves super thin", or getting back the wrong change. It is by sharing the innocuous moments that we develop a sense of truth, compassion, and unity. Know what I mean?

got ubiquity?....still?

2007-09-24T23:04:00.001-07:00

Came across this T-shirt on a coffee-walk with the gents. Hilarity ensued. Alright, it wasn't exactly this T-shirt, it was black with white font, but the phrase was the same. And it got me thinking...

Haven't we moved beyond the "got milk?" campaign for our clever pop-cultural references at this point? It was a monumental campaign. Truly. It has forever left its mark on our culture and will be inducted in the advertising hall of fame in its first year of eligibility. But surely there must be a handful of newer references to be made, no? Certainly we can do better than slapping one half of a tagline onto a T-shirt and filling in the blank with "x" product, can't we? Maybe we can't.

The main problem with the neverending love affair with Goodby's contriubtion to the California Milk Processor Board is that it's just not:

a) old enough - it's in that middle phase where it was actually done over a decade ago, but isn't quite aged to the point where it's clever. Partly because of...

b) it has never gone away. - Since it's inception the "got milk?" campaign has had many admirers and appropriators. For a while, the mockery was somewhat clever, pointed to a phenomenon and made sense. But at this point, the use of "got ___?" puts an image in my mind of a group of dental secretaries gathered around the lunch table in Des Moines (no slight on the city, that's just where this imagination takes place) laughing over getting some T-shirts made up for the Christmas party which read "got plaque?" or "got brush?" or "got floss?"

I only ask that we harness our collective creative juices and agree to stop the derivative, redundant, old-news punnery.

Talkin' 'Bout Me Generation

2007-09-21T10:06:00.000-07:00

Read a book a while back called “Generation Me”. It’s written by Jean Twenge (PhD) and deals with the differences between Baby Boomers and the generation after that.

Interestingly, Baby Boomers are referred to as the “Me Generation” in part because they were the first generation to attempt to find the journey to the self (somewhere Dr. Phil and Wayne Dyer are smiling and nodding). Not just as a drug-enduced search, but on a deeper level, the Baby Boom generation left societal norms behind and attempted to discover what was “true for themselves” – what they were passionate about, what was more than a “job”, but a “calling”. In their current, version 2.Oprah, Baby Boomers are on the verge of empty-nesterhood retirement and are reclaiming and rediscovering themselves and the interests that they gave up earlier in life or put on hold because of the families they raised. Now, time and money are enabling hobbies, passions, and edutainment excursions.

However, Dr. Twenge points out, despite the search for the self, the Baby Boom generation has always done everything in groups. Sit-ins and protests, consciousness raising, support groups, discos, even current “self-seeking” is based around joining classes, going out with girlfriends, joining a league, etc. As much as they can be, they are the “Cooperative Me Generation”.

Earlier I didn’t say “Gen X” or “Millennials” (nor Echo Boomers, Gen Y, or iGen). The author insists that Gen X is lumped in with our younger counterparts (which irks any Gen Xer – just ask us) and that Gen X, as a very label, is a misnomer because the same slacker mentality that got us the coolest of the generation names is not applicable to todays execs, entrepreneurs, and Internet millionaires who fall within that age range.

And so, the post-Baby Boomer generations (basically from 1967-1990) are all lumped together in Dr. Twenge’s definition and form “Generation Me” (or “GenMe” for short, buzzworthiness) - the flip version of the “Me Generation”.

Here’s where it gets interesting. The book points out that we are the true owners of this self-focused name because we have all grown up with the idea of “self-importance”. We were sent to school and sat through “self-esteem” curriculums. We have been reared on the notions that we can “do, be, and achieve anything we want in the world, as long as it makes us happy”. We take for granted that there could ever exist a time when our personal needs weren’t already met, or expected to be met. We don’t have to search for the self, the way our parents did. We live in the world of “self” because it is our birthright. Isn’t it? Twenge writes: “Today’s youth are experiencing that society right now, and they speak the language of the self as their native tongue. The individual has always come first, and feeling good about yourself has always been a primary virtue.”

The good doctor/author provides decades worth of comparative data of high school and college students between the 1950’s through the 1990’s showing the increase in such measures as “extrovertedness”, “desire to be famous”, “belief that my opinion matters”, “self-satisfaction”, “independence” and “self-promotion” among others. There is a clear rise in narcissistic behaviors and attitudes. We are more likely to argue that if we “do our best” that’s good enough. That (for example) a paper we wrote in college couldn’t possibly be challenged because what really matters is that we believe in its validity, not its execution or implicative merit. In plain English, GenMe is being labeled as the most self-serving of all time, and that we have no comprehension of reality. That despite our desire to be whatever we want because we believe we can, as Roper Youth Report states, “the gap between what they have and what they want has never been greater.” There are simple realities and truths we choose to ignore under the shingle of “positive self-esteem”: fat girls aren’t ballerinas and short kids aren’t in the NBA.

In fact, the very digital technologies that are so native to us (blogs, LiveJournals, etc.) play into this generation’s need to be recognized. Why have a MySpace page or a blog other than to collect “friends” or to have your opinion commented on. Rather than take the time to become an expert on a subject, we live in a YouTube-instant-authority world which enables anyone with a keyboard and a video, pardon me, digital camera to voice an opinion, and, if they’re lucky, become a celebrity du jour and experience the “Lonely Girl 15 Minutes of Fame” to which this generation is so latently entitled.

It’s a fascinating read so far. It has both had me baffled in indefensible agreement as well as had me turn to a stranger on the bus to let them know “that’s not true, she’s generalizing” or “why won’t she talk about the inherent positives of that kind of technology?”

What do you think? Are we self-centered or independently-minded? Entitled or optimistic? Young leaders or Narcissists?

Bjork, Sadie, and living big juicy life

2007-09-04T10:22:00.000-07:00

I caught Bjork on Saturday Night Live. Apparently it originally aired in April, but that's irrelevant. I have no words for what ensued. The band was intensely focused on the bizarre rhythms and experimental sounds coming from their drums and synthesizer. In the background were, (what?), a dozen women with various brass instruments in their hands and microphone stands in front of them. Eventually they played the instruments, but for the most part, they were there to join in the spoken-word chorus, chanting along with Bjork: "we are the earth intruders..." (shown here not on SNL, but an approximation of the performance)

And that brings us to the center of it all. Bjork. The rhythm literally was coming out of her. Her barefeet skipped and danced of their own accord, her hands kept time and shook and moved as well, she didn't look out at the audience, but was clearly connected to them just the same. What I saw was a woman so completely living out loud and plugged into her world that, despte the fact that I found the song itself at best a future punchline, I was transfixed, unable to turn away, and unable to deny the powerful joy I was witnessing that can only come from doing what you truly love.

Fast forward to my daughter, Sadie, this weekend (or any weekend really). I love my kid. She's four years old and lives her life in that same way. The picture here is her in just her underwear with her hair styled in upturned braided pigtails to look like the swirly curls of her idol, Uniqua. In the picture, Sadie is at University Village, dancing and enjoying herself while onlookers smile and turn to each other and say, "omigod, she's so cute". More than cute, which she clearly is, I pray that my daughter always retains that sense of freedom and joy and truthfulness about who she is, so that life's passion can move through her like it does Bjork, Jim Henson, Sark, Bruce Mau, or any other person who is clearly living their right livelihood. Do you know folks like that? I encourage you to start a list below.

Masculinity in the 21st Century

2007-08-31T23:29:00.000-07:00

I came across some thoughts I'd had once upon a time about the idea of masculinity that I thought were actually quite interesting. I thought I'd give them another look and share them now that I've gone all "cyberguy".

In a previous series of focus groups that I did regarding affluent baby boomer men (41-55) and their views on masculinity, here were the key takeaways:

Essentially, masculinity can be divided into two main archetypes: Protector and Provider. This is supported by an exercise in which men were asked to bring in an article of clothing that made them feel most "like a man". Some men brought in sports jerseys, a fisherman's hat, a pair of strong, motorcycle boots. Others brought in a tuxedo, or an elegant tie. The earlier (sports & strength gear) we categorized as the Protector. These clothes and the feelings they described thereafter spoke to their sense of physical strength, the idea of feeling/being perceived as tough and rugged, a sense of something long-lasting/enduring, active, hard-working, and even the ability to overcome. The men who brought in the fancier clothes fell into the latter category, the Provider. There choices were outward symbols of a sense of confidence, a feeling of invincibility, a competitive spirit, resourcefulness, and integrity.

It was also interesting to note that these men pointed out that while their fathers were defined by their careers, they personally feel that they are defined by their family. The combination of the above paragraph (protectors and providers) with this notion is at the heart of what these men are all about. There is a need for their exterior to reflect traditional masculinity, but their interior is all about embracing femininity. Thus, the overall idea of masculinity becomes quite complex.

J.K. Rowling's Hagrid, for all his half-giant, cartoon appearance, is spot-on with the findings. Is he the model of true 21st century American masculinity? The caring tenderheart wrapped up in the Hell's Angels' motogarb? Maybe. But the bigger questions are what do we do with that juxtaposition of tough and touching? How do products become designed to speak to this exterior/interior paradox? How do advertisements reflect that lamb within a bearskin without becoming cliched? Who's doing well with it? Who isn't?

Dry is the new Jones

2007-08-28T23:09:00.000-07:00

Much has been made of the Jones Soda phenomenon, as it should be. Despite some perceived missteps in attempts to expand their target audience (Jones Organics? Jones Naturals? Jones candy?), very few if any brands have captured a web-based movement the way they have. Early on Jones recognized the power of social media and blew up their online space without relying on traditional media. The gallery of folks who've plastered their faces, ideas, and artwork on Jones bottles is truly something to behold.

However, if you've not been following along with the soda trends, you're missing out on the latest brand to take advantage of a carefully targeted audience. Dry soda really hit the nail on the head in creating an upscale soda market. Pardon me, "the first culinary soda". Honestly, though, it's a brilliant piece of strategy. They're the only ones of their kind out there. They found the hole, the gap, the market. And now, they offer 4 flavors of "all-natural, lightly sweetened beverages designed for those wanting a sophisticated non-alcoholic option to accompany a great meal or simply a night out with friends." And oh, what flavors they are. Kumkwat, Lemongrass, Rhubarb, and Lavendar? I still have yet to try Rhubarb, but I'll tell ya, they know what they're doing. The others taste really good. And you're nowhere if your culinary soda doesn't taste amazing.

While everyone and their grandmothers were busy chasing after the young, extreme sports demographic, sponsoring events at the X Games or surf tournaments, Dry stepped in and hit a home run with a more discerning crowd. They are being very selective in where their product can be found, and it is unlikely that you'll find it at Safeway, Target, or Costco anytime in the first couple of years. They'll place themselves in upscale restaurants and Whole Foods to the delight of those still in the mood for exclusivity.

Although the website is still filling in its content, the groundwork has been set to develop sections of the site devoted to recipes, serving suggestions, and taste profiles, continuing the high-end, culinary proposition. The model is red wine, not Red Bull. Smart. All of it, very smart.

what is Uniqua? and why it matters so much

2007-08-27T23:01:00.000-07:00

If you have a 2-5 year old child and you've not shown them the Backyardigans, on Nick, Jr., you're all missing out. Here's what's so great about the show, first, from a parent's perspective, then as a creative achievement.

...and I officially can't believe I just began a blog entry about a kids' TV show.

Now, as I was saying. From a parent's POV, this program is all about enabling your child's imagination. These five characters always begin their adventure in their backyard. The props they carry when they begin their play is minimal, much like the stuff most of us have sitting around our own houses. The characters then begin an adventure, complete with songs and choreographed dance numbers. As the journeys begin, the background changes from the backyard to whatever setting the kids find themselves in for that adventure (wild west, Mars, underwater, etc.). The language is never rough, gender empowerment is shared amongst the boys and girls (meaning the girls get to do just as much exploring as the boys do, if you're scoring at home), and it always concludes with the characters all back at the backyard and heading off to share a healthy snack (orange slices, sushi, etc.).

Now, for the creative-types out there, here's where the Backyardigans gets it going. The "songs" I alluded to earlier are always in a different musical style (polka, opera, jazz, etc.), however, the musical genre and the adventure genre rarely match up. For example, one episode takes place in the wild west and the music style is hip-hop (in a recent interview, the music director connected the dots, claiming both worlds have "posses".) To me, the juxtaposition of genres is the equivalent of a preschool-geared mash-up.

Secondly, the choreography is actual filmed choreography sent to animators. I love that a show goes all the way behind the scenes and does it right. They don't cut corners on the artistic values. And it shows. The characters move in very specific ways, and the dances are all different. There's no generic "Charlie Brown" style dancing (although I do love watching those Peanuts' predictable simplicity). If you watch carefully, you can also see the animated characters are slightly off from each other in the timing of movement and spacing, another stroke of genius. What is captured is very similar to reality, despite the fact that you're watching a penguin, moose, hippo, and other thing (what Uniqua is, according to Wikipedia is a "unique creature" - hence the name. However, my daughter is more daring, referring to Uniqua as a "butterfly without wings in pink overalls." God bless children.)

So where's the "strategy" aspect to this entry? Well, on the client side, in order to define yourself in a sea of sameness and loud loud noise (doesn't matter if you're a kids' TV show or a new soft drink), concentrating on the product, the offering itself, pouring your energies into creating the "best" something is essential to success. Creating something average gets you into the game, but striving for nothing short of greatness wins medals. Product innovation, newness, fresh perspective, imagination, discovering what is real, authentic, a willingness to be contemplative and thorough in the design proces, all the cliches we throw out there as advertarketers are on display on Nick Jr. for you and your preschooler to enjoy.

Where have you gone, Heathcliff Huxtable? Your country needs you now.

2007-08-23T13:33:00.000-07:00

CBS continues to blow the network trumpet, heralding "Two and a Half Men" with the generous superlative: "top-rated". I've seen this program once or twice. Surely, the great comedy minds at the Writers Guild of America can come up with better jokes than Jon Cryer sees pretty woman and longingly groans. or Charlie Sheen winces eyes and deadpans something about women and booze. But, "top rated", c'mon.

So where have all the good sitcoms gone? I recently asked that and someone said, "The Office". Another was "Family Guy" and "The Simpsons". Nobody mentioned "30 Rock", but I know somebody would. However, when you look at that list, 2 programs are animated, 1 is based on a groundbreaking British series, and the other is, well the other has Alec Baldwin.

The bottom line is this: "No sitcom has finished in the top 10 since Everybody Loves Raymond in 2005" reads the stat from USA Today article** about "Back to You", Kelsey Grammer and Patricia Heaton's new go at the 30 minute format. Gone are the glory days of the sitcom. Is this because writers have run out of ideas? Is it because reality TV is now the world's place to go to laugh? Are viewers getting less sophisticated? Are viewers getting more sophisticated? Are network dollars to tied up in advertising dollars to take a gamble on a sitcom finding its audience? What is the cause of the sitcom slide?

I have to believe it resides somewhere in the combination of a handful of the above factors. Certainly, the influx of reality TV programming has given audiences some of the stranger experiences in TV history. Equal parts idiotic, scandalous, hopeful, talented, talentless, and romantic, perhaps the needs we get from our sitcom characters gets scooped up with this rotating band of reality-celebs. I think the network dollars are probably responsible as well, though that's entirely conjecture. BUT, it always seem that when a hit comes out, 5 other shows are instantly developed with (say) 6 thirtysomething buddies trying to make it in NYC. Where is the original thinking? And if it's there and the public isn't allowed to see it for one reason or another, where is the spirit of taking chances? Creativity can not come from a place of fear of failure. There must be a willingness to be wrong, a freedom to fail and a readiness to be the one who tried something new that folks didn't quite "get" at first.

And maybe therein lies the purpose of this entry. I am convinced that talented, creative, funny writers are pounding out the next Cheers as we speak. I'd bet my job on it. But where are those programs? Where is the innovation? And as someone immersed in the world of advertising, that's a question we strive to answer all the time. Where is the passion that leads to risk that leads to true creativity?

**NOTE: This is a total case of "you snooze, you lose" blogging. I had thought about this for a couple of days, starting writing it yesterday and over lunch saw the USA Today article. Bastards. So, I included the reference above in my entry and published anyway. Oh well.

Making friends the old fashioned way

2007-08-20T16:45:00.000-07:00

The debate continues as to which is the more effective way of meeting real friends. The (wildly oversimplified) 2.0 model is that I create my profile, look for other people with similar tags, view their profile and commit with a "poke" or an "invite" or whatever the site's technical term is. Alongside the active seeking is the promise that others are doing the same thing and that hopefully we'll meet somewhere in the middle because we both like DIY projects and The Shins second album. I have made some acquaintances this way, been introduced to a few people, mostly to their catchy, clever nicknames, but sometimes to an actual person, a photo they use to represent themselves in the best possible way and, of course, the list of personal beliefs, faves, etc.

Sunday I was at a baby shower. A real one, not virtual or nuthin'. The host family's husband and I struck up a conversation, and wouldn't you know it, Bill (that's his real name) and I laughed, joked, shared concerns about raising kids, sustained uncomfortable pauses, and downed a beer or two. Time passed quickly and we set up the promise to get our families together for dinner without an event attached. All in all, I'd say a solid connection. I only lament that this doesn't happen very often.

So, herein lies the cryptic quandary. Is there a preferred method of actual (dare I use the term out of its 21st century iteration) "social networking"? Is there greater promise to link yourself in to somebody else, to have the Amazon algorithm let you know that people who like Jack and Megan also like..., or to wait it out in hopes of meeting Bill, sharing a beer and laughter without emoticons or acronyms. The smart money is on the technology. Mine's on reality.

Increasingly I find myself longing for real experiences. The further we get engulfed and embedded in advancement, the less I feel connected, (though the more I am). BUT, I wonder if there is room, space, or logic in the idea of making friends the old fashioned way. I'm all for helping someone build a deck and discovering we share the same interests, but the infrequency at which that happens is far from my 21st century liking. I'd rather have the depth of connection at the speed of a tweet. The paradox is both frustrating and understandable. If Ray Kurzweil is to believed, and singularity is inevitable, is it just a matter of time before the overlap takes place? Or will we deliberately regress and learn to value the arts of writing a letter (yes, with a pen and paper! a what?!?!?!), holding a conversation, throwing a dinner party? I don't know.

But the deeper I become entrenched in my self-selected online universe, the more I long for something real and old-fashioned. Slow, inconsistent, unpredictable, but real.

2007-08-17T10:07:00.000-07:00

Got a great tweet yesterday from Phil:

trying to figure out a real use for facebook ... linked in i get, twitter i get, kyte i get, wtf do i need facebook for again?

This sentiment echoed something Ray wrote a few days prior:

I Stumble, Twitter and IM everyday. I LinkIn, Tube, and occasionally Flickr. Just joined Facebook and refused to jump on the MySpace bandwagon. There's a del.icio.us account buried somewhere. And well, I just remembered my Jobster account has been neglected.

Jotting is no stranger. And, I also belong to things that I really don't understand at first glance. I just feel obligated to try it out ... Like Pownce.

There are just so many options out there that the distinction between them is becoming as much of a wall to effective usage as the very ideology of social networking once promised to eradicate. I'm very new to the game, gang, but it appeared to me that the promise of social networking was to create a great equalizing platform, connecting networks of people based on commonalities. At this point, it's a brand race, and Facebook's rise to the platform du jour is a great example of the fact that like everything else, it's about "what's cool" rather than what's right or what's necessary. We're all on the same networks. We're just dragging our friends around asking them the same thing: do you like this better? And does better mean better or newer? Would that work? Do you like this newer?

Which is a longwinded way of going back to Phil's original question, what is the actual value of Facebook? And what will be the actual value of the network that launches tomorrow? What's new here? Tweet me your answer.

WWSKRD?

2007-08-15T11:52:00.001-07:00

I feel like I can still get in on blogging about the AAAA Planning Conference because it was only a week ago today that it ended, and some of the finer points I left with are really sinking in only now, with a certain amount of distance.

"The problem is not that we've set the bar too high and failed, but that we've set the bar too low and succeeded." - Sir Ken Robinson

Like many of the congregated planners, I left wishing I had a pocket Sir Ken Robinson to pull out and bring along to remind me of what is truly important and worth fighting for and to keep me plugged in at all times to creativity in all its forms. More importantly, I seem to bump up against the notion that not all our endeavors as planners (as advertisers) need to be of the "great depth" variety. That sometimes some quick, topline thinking is all that's really required. I have a great tendency to throw myself into the search for depth, to be dissatisfied with the idea of topline thinking, but I'll tell you...it's a skill set I really need to develop. I would manage time better, satisfy business leadership demands and requests, probably even open a great deal of free time that I could use to "dig deeper" if that's really what interests me.

And yet... the very idea that accepting face value truths when you know in your gut something deeper is at play, or could be discovered drives me insane. I don't mean to sound sanctimonious (too late, right?) but I think we have to demand depth of thought. At Nissan, where I used to work in the Advanced Planning department, our director, Jane Nakagawa, would push us to our cerebral limits in considering a trend, a habit, a value. It wasn't remotely good enough to define a target (for example) as "covetous of free time". What was really at play? What did that really reflect? Really, those four words could go in so many different directions. (e.g. Gen X "Superdad" disease - stuck between the desire to be a rock star at work and at home, or "Missing the playfulness of childhood" or who knows what) My point is, the benefits of "setting the bar too high", of trying and failing in so many ways outnumber the benefits of passing the paper off faster.

I guess if I were better at either, I could a) get my depth of thinking done faster, or b) convince people to give me space and time to go for big.

local shout out for Ballard in Details

2007-08-14T11:35:00.000-07:00

Just want to give a quick hazzah to Ballard Ave and 22nd NW for making the latest Details magazine's small list of "The Best New Shopping Streets in America". They highlight Blackbird, Space Oddity Vintage Furniture, and Bop Street Records. Also featured are Chicago's N. Damen Avenue/N. Milwaukee Avenue/W. North Avenue and NYC's Lafayette Street (b/w Canal and Houston).

Good job, Seattle.

on etiquette

2007-08-14T09:54:00.000-07:00

I take the bus to work. Everyday. Sometimes you see something very nice, like a young feller getting up so that the elderly woman or the blind man can sit down in one of the first few seats near the front of the bus. But what intrigues me is when there is a breakdown in that accepted civility. I am curious as to what creates the absence of etiquette. Or maybe it's the opposite of etiuqette. Take the examples above. I am not referring to a situation in when the young feller doesn't give up his seat for the more needing sitter. I am thinking of moments such as I will list in a moment, in which a person goes out of their way to prevent the moments we've come to appreciate in a civilized culture.

Scenario 1: "The Keeper of the Seat" or "The Seat Boss"
This scenario also takes place on a bus, though I can see it happening on a train or subway too. This persona has two plays, both with sinister motives. Move #1 is to sit in the window seat, but to put their bags (and coats, if applicable) on the aisle seat next to them so that as the bus fills up a person who wants to sit down must ask the Keeper of the Seat to please move their things or even a humble "may I sit here?" It's obnoxious. Accept as a given, Seat Boss, that the bus before 9 in the morning heading into downtown is going to fill up and that your seat will be needed.

The second, and more attrocious of the Keeper of the Seat's arsenal is the one in which the Keeper sits down in the aisle seat, leaving the window seat empty. In what universe is this acceptible behavior? At this point, new entrees onto the bus are forced to request passage to the open seat, now requiring more than moved baggage, but the Seat Boss to get up (if they're kind) or just turn their knees to the side, wedging the new window occupant against the seat in front of them and putting them through a generally rough experience.

Scenario 2: "Airplane Sprinters"
Let's just accept as a given that anyone traveling on an airplane is eager to get off the plane when it lands. This could be for any multitude of reasons, among which are: late for a connection, want to see family, it's been a long flight, etc. If one can concede this contruct, one must realize that the folks who sprint as far as they can from the back of the plane to the front when the "unbuckle your seatbelt" bell chimes, like a herd of Traveling Pavlovians, are in violation of another cultural etiquette: letting the person in front of you exit before you. I have been late for planes. I have missed connections. I have not one time caught a connection just as the terminal doors were closing which is the envisioned scenario of the Airplane Sprinter, who must assume that by moving with LaDainian Tomlinson-like agility for the extra 4 yards before being absorbed by the mob of people who dared take a small breath before leaving their seats after the bell. Let it go. Let. It. Go.

In the spirit of not continuing attempts at cleverness, I'll settle on a point. At what point did decorum go out the window? These are isolated instances, yes, but I see people pushing their way onto elevators, cutting others off on the freeway, cutting others off from speaking (dear GOD! look for an entry on etiquette in the workplace coming soon), and acting in actively selfish ways. It is the "actively" part that frustrates me. Not realizing or accidentally doing something rude is defensible. But going out of your way with the sense of absolute entitlement is the result of what? A society that allows self-selected technologies and other options? Distance from formality on the whole (casual workplaces replacing casual Fridays replacing casual functions replacing semiformal workplaces...)? Truly, there must be something to point to. I just wish we could stem the tide and live with more of a sense of community. Not formality, just harmony.

I'll wrap by saying that at one stop today, in front of Dan's Belltown Grocery, a young feller came running out of the store, long hair flapping behind him, an apron covering his camouflaged shorts and obligatory iron cross calf-tat and he stopped a middle-aged, pear-shaped woman from getting on the bus in order to give her the (what...) dollar thirty-six she'd forgotten to get back for her iced tea? It was a nice moment. Etiquette and goodness are out there. I'm a believer.

let's give this a go, shall we?

2007-08-13T23:47:00.000-07:00

Got some great advice, albeit a bit contradictory, about starting a blog from Aki Spicer at this year's APG conference. On the one hand, you've got to just jump in. It makes no sense to pussyfoot around with the thing - you're either a doer or a don't-er(?). You can create any number of excuses why you aren't a part of the blogosphere (not enough time, too hard, nothing to say, etc.), but it really comes down to leaping off the cliff. Having a little faith. Being willing to go down in flames. However, he also posed the question: are you going to be part of the light or just part of the noise? I'm 100% certain that is not what he actually said, but the nugget is close enough (and there are no quotation marks there). In starting a blog, is what I have to say contructive, insightful, or at the very least, mildly amusing, OR is it all just part of the egocentric, self-important din that passes itself off as "blogging"?

Lamentably, it appears to be careering toward the latter. (sigh) Not a good start...