Preschool Web Lessons

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

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

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

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

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)

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

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

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

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?

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

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

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)

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)

...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)

...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---!

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…

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

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

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

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.