Anatomy of an Idea

Where do ideas come from?  How do they move beyond the realm of abstract thought into something more tangible?

Every day is an opportunity to learn.  To observe.  To ask ourselves "why?".  And to take things apart before we put them back together.  To my surprise—the article I authored for BusinessWeek ended up being featured as the lead story in the Innovation section.  And I just noticed that it's in the Top 5 most read stories at #4.  Did you know that this article would have never come about it wasn't for the actions of the following individuals?  Here's how:

Valeria Maltoni
Several months ago, Valeria sent me a handwritten note including this phrase "You are designing conversations".  It was this simple combination or words which sparked the initial idea that designers could become conversation architects.  I thought about how the role of information architects used to be about organizing information and how this is evolving.  I asked myself—could we become conversation architects?

Jessi Hempel
Jessi works at BusinessWeek and featured my blog a while back.  I sent her an e-mail saying I had an idea around designers/marketers being "conversation architects".  That's pretty much all I had.  Jessi forwarded my thought to Helen Walters, an editor at BusinessWeek and we began working on the idea some more.

Helen Walters
Helen took the initial draft and encouraged me to broaden the context.  She's also responsible for some pretty darn good editing.  And she made the brilliant move of turning a key line from the article into the headline "It's The Conversation Economy, Stupid".  I buried the lead, and Helen dug it right out again.

Ann Handley
Ann brought me in to Marketing Profs to do a Webinar titled "Emerging Media's Impact on the Customer Experience".  Though I found the Webinar to be challenging, it basically ended up acting as my revised outline for current version the article.

Bruce Nussbaum
Bruce caught wind of the Webinar and sent out the signals that he liked what he saw.  This added momentum to the idea.

You
None of this would have happened if it weren't for YOU—the active participants who add to the daily conversation here.

So that's the anatomy behind the article.  That's how an abstract idea turns into something more tangible.  Inspiration can come from anywhere, at any time.  Collaboration is not always what you think it is.  And challenging yourself in ways that make you uncomfortable can lead to good things.  That's what I learned today.

Comments

[christian briggs]

Hi David,

As usual, i love your BusinessWeek article. Nice to see the big media outlets paying attention.

I like the concept of designing conversations. One thing i've been thinking about is the designer's shift from conceiving ourselves as novelist (as you say a 'storyteller') to linguist - the people who come up with the raw elements that everyone else uses to form their own novels.

One of my business partners is a brilliant linguist, and we've had many conversations about this. Linguists in a sense are one step removed from directly designing conversations. They define the grammar that makes up conversations - providing the building blocks for everyone else. They aren't entirely sure what will be done with those blocks once they are designed. The smart ones, though, have studied the culture enough to have some idea. In the context of your busnessweek article, i would say that the Twitter folks have (knowingly or not) defined a new sort of online grammar of interaction.

I have a post from last november on this you might find interesting at http://briggzay.blogspot.com/2006/11/designer-linguist-not-novelist.html (sorry to self-link, but it's very relevant)

[Valeria Maltoni]

David:

You are very kind. In the last several weeks you have given me much to reflect upon, including the new spark of ideas and connections that have been firing here at Logic+Emotion.

Funny how conversation is now viewed as innovation -- the tools may have changed, yet the need, and desire that move our actions have not. Interesting to note also Christian making the leap to linguistics. Languages are one of the most basic tools t our disposal for conversation.

Just like technology tools, languages can and do change the way we think -- i.e., I do not know something until I say it... and we define what we're building as we have conversations. As Gavin said in a recent post: ideas upon ideas. Christopher Alexander talked about the "timeless way of building" and in that sense, languages are indeed the structure to the timeless space of conversations.

Languages as extremely sophisticated technology tools have an impact on the way we think *because* they grow our brains. As I wrote a while back, it is fantastic when we are willing to change our minds as well.

Ideas do indeed come from everywhere. And they are formed and honed just like the smooth rocks in the river of our thinking, and doing.

[Jamey Shielss]

David,
Once again you are able to inspire and generate thought provoking content. I appreciate your insights and willingness to share them with the world. Your ideas have challenged me to engage my clients and everyone else for that matter in a new and thoughtful way by considering myself to be an innovator and architect of the conversations. Keep up the great work.

[Lewis Green]

David,

Without relationships that inspire us, we are little more than bags of water. Thank you for another thoughtful post.

[Bruce Nussbaum]

David,
My brilliant professor-of-linquistics wife reminds me that there are two decades worth of academic research on "conversation" that we all should consult now that social media is pushing us toward a conversation economy. The books of Deborah Tannen (You Just Don't Understand...) would be one place to start.
Bruce

[Uwe Hook]

Great post. Interesting to see how the wikification of our society is gaining more traction.

[DA]

Well I think the notion of linguistincs is very interesting to say the least. This is something I'll be looking into. Thanks for all of the thoughts on this post and thanks for the book referrel.

[christian briggs]

I highly agree with Bruce. In our HCI/Design program here at Indiana University Informatics we variously and generatively use the ideas of Lakoff, Johnson, Roland Barthes, Chomsky, Eco etc. to great effect. As Bruce's wife wisely points out, this is one of the many long traditions we're silly to forget in our rush toward all that is 'new.'

Design is, of course all about language - visual, interactional and otherwise.

Thanks to all for the thoughtful posts!

[Adam]

There it is. Everything you say WILL be 'commodified'. All your social interactions MUST be 'facilitated'.

This 2.0 boosterism is becoming tired. The web has ALWAYS been about conversation. People DON'T need brands to talk to each other. Move on.

[makethelogobigger]

I’m posting this here after trying to in the Business Week comment section.)

I agree with the points made David. Although technology enables today's consumers to express their good/bad feelings about brands, I still don't think they’re there yet in terms of being able to control those how goods/products are made. Marketed, yes. Aspects of sales and customer service, yes as well. When consumers are able to have a voice in how things are made though, then they will have even more of a stake in the conversation.

[Ian Lurie]

Great post. As social media and a better focus on design for the audience makes it easier to 'talk back' to organizations, conversation marketing will grow as a concept.

If I may: I've written quite a bit on the topic of Conversation Marketing at www.conversationmarketing.com.