[ paul isakson ]

A Few Worthwhile Reads

Some interesting things I came across yesterday and would like to post more on, but probably won't be able to for a day or two if at all, so for now, here are the links...

First, Dave Trott Live Chat via Scamp - Dave shares some great advice and thinking on how to get a job in this business and what he thinks makes for great advertising today. I also really liked Scamp's approach to this for two reason. First, Scamp wrote a post arguing that much of what Dave wrote 30 years ago on getting a job in advertising was irrelevant today and followed it up by allowing Dave to have a conversation with Scamp's readers to defend/explain himself on the Scamp blog. Second, I think using the comments section of a blog post to host an audience driven interview was a fantastic idea. Thanks to Alan (a.k.a. Tangerine Toad) for pointing it out via Twitter.

Second, Scholz & Friends has posted an interesting presentation titled Brands and Communication in the Era of Media Democracy that is well worth a look. For those browsing here, following is the slide show. For those reading this where it won't come through, here's a link.

Lastly, BMW has revealed some inspiring thinking on the future of car design that caught the attention of quite a few. I love that they ignored conventions and took a fresh look at things. A bit from the WInding Road post:

Chris Bangle, head of BMW Group Design, describes the philosophy behind this wildly innovative GINA Light Visionary Model as “Being flexible. Thinking flexible, acting flexible – context over dogma.”

Digging Into Design Thinking

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In looking up more on the subject of design thinking, I came across a great article from Red Hat published in May of 2006 that is well worth the read. Here it is in its entirety:

Intro to design thinking

An interview with David Burney conducted by Tim Hyer

You may have noticed the word "design" being talked about recently. Perhaps you've read about design thinking in a recent business publication, or noticed the phrase being used in discussions on innovation where you work. Maybe you've heard about Stanford's newly-founded d.school.

That's a lot of hype. What is true is that design is changing the way innovative businesses operate. Successful companies like GE, Procter & Gamble, and Maytag have made significant investments and organizational changes to take advantage of design process and methodologies. Design as an innovative problem-solving methodology is fast becoming an imperative business strategy.

Our success at Red Hat is due to one of the biggest and most successful collaborative/transformative innovation models ever--open source. The value we bring to IT customers the world over is unquestionable and defining. Open source, at its heart, is a design thinking process.

What follows is a Q&A with David Burney, Vice President of Brand Communications + Design at Red Hat. Burney is a champion of design thinking.

Red Hat Magazine: What is design thinking?

David Burney: Design thinking is a term being used today to define a way of thinking that produces transformative innovation. While the term feels trendy, the way of thinking is hardly new. One can think of the cave painters in Lascaux 25,000 years ago as design thinkers-- they first began to collect data about the world they experienced, express that data by creating visual stories, document those stories in a way that could be shared into the future, and use that data to create new and innovative ways to solve their problems. The creation of alphabets thousands of years later is an example of design thinking.

RHM: What does design thinking have to do with design?

DB: The word "design" has a lot of different meanings for a lot different people. Often when people think of design they think of an artifact that's been designed well--such as a chair, a car or a building. Or they think of design as style or fashion--a great pair of shoes. The term 'design thinking' has gained popularity because it makes it easier for those outside the design industry to focus the idea of design as a way of thinking about solving problems, a way of creating strategy by experiencing it rather than keeping it an intellectual exercise, and a way of creating and capturing value.

RHM: Is design thinking exclusively art/design-related?

DB: That's a pretty big question. If I could determine the nature of art, then maybe I'd have a chance of answering it. Ellen Lupton, who is a very good designer and a leading writer on design, says that design is "art people use." I like that answer. What I find interesting in your question is that art, design, and design thinking are all about creating something new--in that, they are all transformative in nature. There are very real and important differences between processes that tear down to innovate, or processes that gather best practices to innovate, and creation processes that innovate. They demand very different actions, different cultural ways of thinking.

RHM: What impact does design thinking have on the way businesses operate?

DB: That's a great question. There is one philosophy that businesses only turn to design when they're desperate. After they've competed on price, delivery, systems, etc., and they find their business is totally commoditized and they have no other choice, THEN they turn to design. Some suggest that's true of Apple.

Of course, some businesses look for commoditized industries for opportunites to apply design thinking. Then they create new business categories. Even industries. What's more of a commodity than the coffee bean? Then consider what Starbucks has been able to accomplish. Or consider what Nike did in the sports shoe industry. Or Toyota in automobiles.

Clearly, today, it's increasingly difficult for businesses, even countries and geographic regions, to find ways to compete. They're finding that iterative methods for generating innovation and value aren't giving them the competitive advantage they're used to. The success of businesses who have built design thinking cultures has begun to be noticed. Innovation and creativity are on everyone's lips. Stanford University has started a d.school. This year, Davos has included design as a topic on its agenda. It's all over the business media. And companies as diverse as traditional marketing giant Procter & Gamble and manufacturer GE, commodity companies like Maytag and LG, are creating new strategies and restructuring their companies--making huge investments--to take advantage of design thinking.

RHM: How does it lead to innovation?

DB: From my point of view, leading transformative innovation is a very different animal from the processes most often used in the business world, and certainly very different from the cultures that are built to sustain most enterprises. A few years ago, Businessweek editor Bruce Nussbaum stated that less than 5% of Fortune 1000 companies 'get it' when it comes to design.

Ironically, I don't think innovation is that hard. In fact, once you can accept that innovation is about generating lots of ideas-- focusing on quantity rather than quality-- you're halfway there. That's first and foremost. It's dependent upon being extremely confident while not 'knowing' the answer. People who demand to know the answer too soon kill innovation. So, that's easy, right?

Design begins with the process of defining, and redefining, the issue or problem at hand, because it's terribly important to make sure everyone is on the same page. You can only get there if people are willing to put forth the most basic thoughts and ideas, and use those to create as simple a problem definition as possible. It's extremely important to feel free to suggest bad, even dumb, ideas. IDEO, one of the world's great design firms, actively pursues wild ideas. Because without that mindset you won't have the same ability to innovate; not by a long shot. Because transformative innovation is dependent upon having participants who don't know all the answers. Let's face it, if you know everything--if you have all the answers--it's kind of hard to innovate.

Play is important in design thinking. Critical even. Having fun IS often the objective. Giving up ownership. Listening, humbly. Forming teams from people who come from very different disciplines and cultures; not keeping them compartmentalized. Getting into the world and testing things out. Prototyping and failing. These are all good things in design thinking cultures.

Traditionally, success in the corporate world is often another matter: Territorial battles, internal competition, opaque agendas, hoarding information; strict structure by function--all are serious detriments to building a culture of design.

RHM: What are some examples of companies that embody design thinking as a competitive advantage?

DB: I've mentioned a few already. You can add companies like OXO, Target, VW, Progressive Insurance. These are great examples of design thinking-- companies that really involve their customers in co-creation of their products/service--companies that build great systems.

RHM: What role does collaboration play in design thinking?

DB: Most children easily grasp the concept that two heads are better than one. Well, 40 heads are really better than one. The myth of the lone genius is just that. A myth. I like to remind people that Frank Lloyd Wright is dead. Now, what we're seeing in the development of Linux and other open source collaboration development (design) models is incredible. Look at Fedora! Red Hat Enterprise Linux. Look at the value created! I think we, as humans, are just beginning to tap into the power of large-scale collaboration for creative problem solving. Bruce Mau, who spoke at our Summit last summer in New Orleans, is doing a great job of documenting how large-scale collaboration projects are changing the world. We believe at Red Hat that we have a strong leadership role to play.

RHM: How can corporations take advantage of design thinking?

DB: Design thinking is more than a methodology. Design is a cultural way of thinking. It's important to understand its power, commit to evolving your culture, even restructuring the company, resourcing and rewarding those who practice design thinking. You can no longer tolerate those who shut down design thinking. We have to get rid of the devil's advocates and experts who own their domain to the detriment of innovation.

 

The Next Issue

Faris wrote a post recently that reminded me of something I meant to share, but neglected to back in early January. The Future Department has a new magazine out called The Next Issue. As described by The Future Department, the purpose of the magazine and what differentiates it from other magazines are:

Our aim is not to report on past events – or just talk about the future – but to play a proactive role in developing new solutions and approaches, through an ongoing conversation with the creative and business communities we serve, making intellectual and personal connections across all creative disciplines.

In every other magazine, the published article represents the end of a journey: the subject has been treated, and the author and reader move on. Here every article we publish is the starting point – developed and shared by an exclusive group of the most creative minds in the world: our readers are also our contributors.

The request that launched the first issue was something like this:

Summarise the challenges involved in bringing ideas to fruition in a rapidly changing and unpredictable environment. Please submit your thoughts on this subject in as many words as you choose.

The folks at The Future Department were kind enough to publish my response, which was:

Ideas, media and content are all becoming more and more disposable. What was popular and relevant one minute can be dead the next. If you don't do your homework on who you are trying to communicate with, you could end up looking very out of touch, and thus, irrelevant.

Another challenge is the growing amount of content on the web. What you think is an original idea, could very well be out there already or in production at the same time. Then when you release your new shiny idea, someone links the two and accuses one of ripping off the other. In reality, the creator of each may have never known about the other.

Last thought is that thanks to all of the quick communications tools we have at our disposal, clients can more easily send out for feedback on ideas to various audiences and then use this feedback to kill ideas. Odds are this "research" was not done correctly but now they're not going to move forward with the idea because of what someone said to them in an email that was out of context.

I'm extremely flattered that they included my quick thoughts (thank you, Steve & Alex) and encourage you to download a copy of it via PDF here. But not to read my simple note. There is much smarter stuff in there by the likes of Russell Davies, Stefan Sagmeister, John Maeda, John Grant and many, many more.

In addition to the PDF / printed magazine, there are also some bits of exclusive online content including Faris' article. Here are the links for those:

Burnt Fingers - Simon Andrews | In The Future - You Are The Entertainment - Faris Yakob | Ready. Fire. Aim. - Carl Johnson | The Nearest Thing to Pregnant - John Grant | Unknown Green Consumer Insights - Tamara Giltsoff | The Ultimate Pub Conversation - Adam Sefton | Publishing - Daljit Singh | Planet - Carsten Beck | Crystal Balling - Frank Palmer | Passion - Cindy Gallop | Reverse Engineering - Valerio Franco | Doing Down Under - Richard Hollingum | The Next Issue - Lewis Blackwell

I hope you find it as worthwhile of a read as I did and if anything grabs you, or you have some thoughts of your own, please share...

New Web Math: Form + Function > Pretty + Funny

Brian Morrissey has a great article in ADWEEK today on the coming age of marketing as a service/utility.

(Download a PDF of the article here .)

It supports a lot of what has been rattling around in my head for the past several months as well as a recent post by Gareth that I've been meaning to write about, in addition to what many others have been writing and thinking about.

The not-so-shortened version of the article:

The overarching thought is that the time has come for brands to stop creating one-off Web sites for everything and start building brand loyalty by delivering utilities that both "improve people's lives in some small way," and, "directly pad corporate bottom lines."

The first step in getting there is that brands need to stop treating the digital space like old media. It's not about forcing your brand message at people through your site. Yes, consistency in how you present your brand is important. But the digital space is not TV, print, OOH or radio. It requires a different design process and a different approach to being successful in this space. It's a two-way interaction and communication tool, not a one-way one.

This means no more pushing your off-line marketing campaign online through a shallow micro-site that is more like a set of really bad "matching luggage" to your TV spots and print ads. That means no more treating online video as a TV spot. It means no more site navigation terms that only make sense to the people who work at the agency or at the client's company.

The second step is that everything you do in the digital space needs to revolve around the people who will be using what you create and it must be designed for them. Yes, everything.

It's not about how you want to present things, what you want to tell them, or forcing them to a place where you want them to do this. It's about allowing them to easily get what they need from you, how they want to get it and where they want to get it. Even if that's not on your Web site.

Beyond that, it is even more powerful if you can give them a tool that in some form adds value to their life. Nike+ and the Dominoes Pizza Builder are two popular examples of this right now. The more you can create a connection between your real-world product and the digital space by making the two work together to make peoples' lives a bit easier when it comes to using them, the better.

Ultimately, building emotional connections is still the goal. Same as it ever was. Only it's even more attainable now. If you can create something that helps people get through their day with a little less effort or that saves them a bit of time or that makes something they care about more enjoyable, you have an even better shot at having them form an emotional attachment to your brand.

Anyway, you should really give the article a read. It's full of good quotes and thoughts from those who are practicing this already. Here are a few of my favorites:

"The days of making funny things that may or may not have an effect on the client's business are ending." - Jeff Benjamin, interactive creative director at Crispin Porter + Bogusky

"When you create a utility, you're creating something that gives people time back. It becomes less about information as pollution and more about information to help people get through life." - Nick Law, CCO for North America at R/GA.

"Five years ago, people would muck through a site with non-standard navigation that was confusing because the whole Internet was confusing. Now the Internet is so big you can't do anything that's annoying anymore." - Benjamin Palmer, CEO of Barbarian

"There's a big possibility to deliver on your brand through the tools or functionality you can give people that are positive." - David Armano, vp of creative at Critical Mass

"No digital property is an island anymore. Everything can be connected to everyone. You have to design for that." - Garrick Schmidt, vp of user experience at Avenue A/Razorfish

"We're trying to think from the beginning of how to syndicate them [Web-based applications] out to other platforms. That's been a mind shift for us because a year and a half ago there wasn't that expectation." - Conor Brady, ecd at Organic

"If you think we're just going to be making Web sites in the next five years, anyone with that business model isn't going to be a business." - Dan LaCivita, executive director at Firstborn

"It's a different way of approaching marketing. The creative has always been about telling stories. It's obscuring a truth until a punch line. It's linear. Designers want to make the message or functionality apparent immediately. It's fundamental to what we're doing in marketing." - Nick Law, CCO for North America at R/GA.

UPDATE: More on this topic here.

Duncan Watts vs. The Tipping Point

Note: This post is a bit late coming. It has been sitting a draft since the second day of February waiting for a couple final thoughts. Sorry about that. I'm sure you've already read quite a bit on the article that spurred it, but rather than delete it due to it's untimeliness, I'm posting it anyway. Here we go then...

An article titled, Is the Tipping Point Toast? by Clive Thompson, from February's Fast Company has created quite a stir. The article is based on the research of Duncan Watts and basically says that it's not the who that makes a trend take of so much as it is the what, when and where.

I highly suggest you read the article before continuing on, but here are a couple key paragraphs:

"If society is ready to embrace a trend, almost anyone can start one--and if it isn't, then almost no one can," Watts concludes. To succeed with a new product, it's less a matter of finding the perfect hipster to infect and more a matter of gauging the public's mood. Sure, there'll always be a first mover in a trend. But since she generally stumbles into that role by chance, she is, in Watts's terminology, an "accidental Influential."

Perhaps the problem with viral marketing is that the disease metaphor is misleading. Watts thinks trends are more like forest fires: There are thousands a year, but only a few become roaring monsters. That's because in those rare situations, the landscape was ripe: sparse rain, dry woods, badly equipped fire departments. If these conditions exist, any old match will do. "And nobody," Watts says wryly, "will go around talking about the exceptional properties of the spark that started the fire."

Some who are writing about the article are agreeing with Duncan Watts, saying that it's not the super group of "Influentials" who matter most. What's more important are the conditions of the market in being ready to accept a trend and seeing everyday people around us embracing it, not just a small set of "Influentials." Some are passionately defending the beliefs evangelized by The Tipping Point and The Influentials - that the 10% of uber-connecteds are the cornerstone to converting the masses. If you get them to tout your product or service, you win. Some are staying firmly planted in the middle.

I was actually able to see Duncan present some of his research and thinking at a creative summit this fall in Minneapolis. I thought a lot of what he had to say then was very true and I still do. One of the best explanations as to why the influencer model doesn't work comes from Mark Earls. His post talks to it being a combination of our complex, intertwined social networks that are not easily explained, our varying roles within those networks and our primary innate learning process of mirroring the behaviors of those around us.

To expand, individually, we have defined roles within the various networks that we are a part of. In each of those networks, we look to different people for their opinions on specific subjects. There is no single person we look to for information on everything. Secondly, it is how those around us behave that drives our actions, not what they say. It is in our nature to want to fit in with the herd, not go against it. Actions really do speak louder than words - we change our actions by copying the behaviors of those around us so that we feel more comfortable in our surroundings, we most often do not change them by listening to people talk about it.

The best personal example I have in semi-support of this comes from a national brand adoption study that was conducted a few years back for one of the clients I was working on at the time. They set out to uncover how a brand in their category becomes the primary brand of choice among consumers in a given market and then with that understanding, what could be done to change it in their favor if they weren't the leader.

I'm not able to go into detail about what the research uncovered, but essentially, it supports what Duncan and Mark are saying. If you want to change behavior, you have to go do things that are directly tied to behavior. You can't just talk. The study also wasn't able to identify one group of "influencers" that could make the desired changes happen. The clients were hoping to find one as they knew this would help lower costs when it came to implementing solutions, but what they found was that there were multiple groups of people they would have to do things for in different ways to influence the desired behavior changes as each of these groups played a different role in the overall desired change.

Ultimately, I agree with what's coming out of Duncan Watts' research - if you're thinking you can change the behavior of many by talking to an elite few, you're highly unlikely to succeed. Changing attitudes and behaviors is far more complex than how the "influentials" theory works and it's not as much how influential the person is delivering the message as it is how ready and willing people are to change their behaviors.

This isn't saying you shouldn't look to do special things for key customer segments. By all means, it's important in some cases to craft communications and programs that are designed for a specific subset of the people you want to win over. It's just saying that you shouldn't expect to win over the masses by sending out messaging to the so-called "influentials."

For more interesting views and thoughts on the article and subject be sure to read these posts:

Boing Boing | David Armano | Guy Kawasaki | Gareth Kay 

Mark Earls | Seth Godin | Noah Brier

Mike Arauz | Valeria Maltoni | Gavin Heaton

Image Credit

As A Whole, We're Not Measuring Up

WARC published an article (.pdf available below if link goes inactive) yesterday stating that marketing effectiveness has reached an all-time low. The article is based on the Global Marketing Effectiveness Report, a study conducted by the Fournaise Marketing Group with 3,000 marketing professionals from around the world.

Here are some of the key findings reported in the article:

• 65% of all marketing spend in 2007 had no effect on consumers.

• Estimated wastage rates varied from 45% for business-to-business marketers, through to 65% for business-to-consumer.

• Just one in ten of respondents have automated systems in place to track the effectiveness of their spend.

• Of the 55% of marketers who do track the results of their spending, 80% do so manually, spending hours capturing, compiling and analysing data.

• Questioned on strategy, 70% of marketers believe that short-term revenue-boosting and lead-generation campaigns are more important than long-term intangible brand building (15%). A clear indication that marketers are under pressure more than ever before to generate results.

• Tracking marketing effectiveness topped the 2008 wish lists of 35% of marketers, and made the top three for 70%.

Hmm. Do you think that maybe it's time to start changing the way we do things?

Download Article

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the results are in. kind of.

An article on Financial Times today states that Cadbury Schweppes is reporting an up-tick in sales of their Dairly Milk Chocolate brand.

Are they thanking their recent percussion-loving primate ad? Not entirely. But that's not shocking really. It seems fairly common in many companies that advertising is quickly blamed for poor sales but when things go well, everyone is looking for some place else to give the credit.

One of the highlights of the article for me:

Laurence Green, chairman of Fallon London, the advertising agency behind the campaign, said: "The link between a man in a gorilla suit and a chocolate bar is the one the man in the street finds easily, rather than people in the ad industry. Like the chocolate, this is just a bit of harmless fun. That may not strike people as logical, but when people see the ad they are not scrutinising it for meaning, they are doing the ironing or waiting for the rugby to start. They want to be entertained."

Hmm. Is that a polite way of telling those in the ad industry who wrote questioning posts and articles on the spot when it first aired/broke to bugger off?

Personally, I'm glad to hear that Cadbury's numbers were up on the heels of this advertisement. It's clear from the number of remixes created (my favorite) and the well-produced spoof from another widely known brand that this ad struck a chord with people - it brought them joy, just as intended.

What I'm most interested in seeing now is if Glass And A Half Full Productions lives beyond this one spot. Looks like we'll just have to be patient and see what comes in 2008.

apple playing big brother?

Apple is being accused of playing Big Brother on people using the iPhone (and possibly Leopard) through a couple of the widgets. The post on 9to5Mac states that they are collecting info on individual users that could be used to build user profiles that includes data on travel, financial and banking preferences, work details and even personal browsing information.

Some Apple fans are rising to their defense saying that there is no harm being done here by Apple. I'm not an expert on what different bits of code mean, so I can't say who is right. Very ironic though that the company who took a jab at their competition using the Big Brother idea is now being accused of just that.

What's becoming more and more interesting to me is how apparent it really is that marketing and advertising have become the evil empire. Verizon faced some of this same scrutiny a while back when it sent out a letter letting it's customers know they would begin sharing information from their calling records with its “affiliates, agents and parent companies.”

Now that technology is getting to a point where we can start being served up relevant information to our lives instead of being barraged with a million things we don't care about, we're too jaded and distrustful of marketers too allow the sharing of our information that would enable this. I can't say I blame anyone for not wanting to share their information. There are plenty of bad things that cold happen from this.

I just find it interesting that by sharing this information, we could be relieved of some of the annoyance of having advertising that means nothing to us shoved in front of us; yet we don't trust companies enough with this information to make that pain go away.

found

read it.

Right now, it's only available through Amazon UK. But you can pre-order it in the U.S. store.

My copy arrived late last week. Just started reading it last night. When it arrived, I was second guessing myself on whether or not I should have waited to get it. Only because I wasn't sure if it was worth paying the extra shipping and an unfavorable exchange rate for. (Now seeing what the U.S. store is charging for it, the exchange rate bit is negligible.) I've only gotten through the introduction, other preface stuff and chapter 1, but that thought now seems laughable.

I think this is going to supplant Truth, Lies & Advertising as the first book I recommend when someone tells me they want to be a planner and asks, among other things, for a recommendation on what books to read.

Here's a couple quotes from the dust jacket by people whose books I have also recommended previously, and will continue to recommend:

"King writes of our industry, at its best, as representing "Creative imagination subjected to critical control." He could have been describing his own mind and approach, which have inspired generations of brand managers and planners and remain deeply relevant today. This book should be required reading for everyone entering the business, and serve as a reminder to the rest of us that however high we think we have set our standards, they are probably not high enough." - Jon Steel, Planning Director, WPP

"King's relentless thirst to understand, rigour of questioning and breadth of learning remain an inspiration. A profoundly rewarding, and rather humbling read." - Adam Morgan, Eat Big Fish

the new brazilian

A Flickr set from Tony de Marco reveals the aftermath of São Paulo, Brazil's Clean City laws. Ad Huggers are up in arms over this senseless clearcutting, while Clutter Busters are rejoicing in the streets.

Found @ It's Nice That