Logic+Emotion

When Presentation Eclipses Story

Is it possible for design to be too good?  At last weeks Design Research conference, Tania Aldous of Whirlpool gave a stunning presentation called " Winning the Hearts and Minds of Consumers".  I cannot overstate how visually magnificent her presentation was.  I felt like a novice as I sat there drooling over the amazing graphics and motion design.  The presentation was a non-stop visual dream come true.  The entire thing was professionally crafted—impeccable and brilliant.  The display of information was tasteful and well executed.  I'm not exaggerating—it was that good.

Only one problem.  I can't remember what the heck her presentation was about.

I don't mean this in a snarky way at all.  Tania was very articulate and gave good voiceover to her "slides".  I was so darn distracted and engrossed by the effectiveness of her visual presentation that it was hard for me to focus on what she was saying.  I am not alone—the designer next to me was also enthralled and I think somewhat distracted.  We kept chatting back and forth on how the presentation was done. What software did they use?  Was it professionally designed?  It had to be.  There was no other explanation. 

So it got me thinking.  Can a presentation be so well designed that it actually detracts from the story?  I'm really wrestling with this one.  I couldn't find one thing wrong with that presentation.  It was absolutely smart, attractive and effectively communicated information in an elegant fashion.  Maybe that was the problem.  The presentation layer was perfect.  Too perfect.  There were no signs of imperfection.  Nothing that said  "a human being touched this".

I'm going to have to think about this one some more.  It's really messing with my head.

Why Execs Are Stumbling in a New Media World

Rob points us to this insightful article in the Globeandmail.  I especially like this excerpt:

"Executives at Martha Stewart Living Omnimedia took great pains earlier this year to make certain the company's redesigned website looked flawless before rolling it out to the public.

After all, this is a media company whose magazines, books, products and programs feature ideas about attractive and tasteful lifestyles. Why not a beautiful site?

"That was a big mistake," Wenda Harris Millard, the company's president of media, said this week during a panel discussion at Advertising Week. "We put beauty before utility."

She said the front page, with its video player and jazzy graphics, included only about five links to actual content, "so the things people were looking for couldn't be found."

The mistake, she said, was in failing to understand that "when the reader or viewer or listener becomes the user, what she's looking for is much different — at least initially."

I highly recommend reading the entire article.  But why?  Why are execs stumbling?  Are they out of touch?  Could it be B.S.O.S?  Or maybe there isn't enough digital in their DNA.  I believe it's all of the above—and more.  It's time for serious change.  We've been sold a bill of goods—not just folks in the traditional realm, but the digital as well.  What does the Martha Stewart example, Bud TV, and Coke Show all have in common?  Users couldn't give a damn what they offer because it's not relevant or valuable.  Give them slick, flash special effects—"beautiful" visual design and artificially controlled "user generated content" and it all spells a recipe for disaster (IE, no traffic).

When will we lean?

Monday night at our event I was cornered by a fiesty individual who wanted to know what was in store for the "future, future" whatever the heck that means.  I hate making predictions—but in this case, I wanted to make a stand, and so I said this:

"Content is the next killer app".

I know, I know—forgive me as it sounds buzzy.  But here's my rationale.  The industry has brainwashed us to believe that an experience is the equivalent of gratuitous Flash orgy Websites that pushes technology to it's limits.  Create something bright and shiny—consumers will take the bait and you'll win an award right?  Take a Flash micro site, toss in some viral for good measure, add a pinch of uninformed social media and viola!  You've got yourself some digital marketing. Research?  Who needs it?

Folks, we really need to start understanding what really motivates users.  There are literally millions of enthusiasts out there producing quality content in highly search engine friendly formats.  Not only is much of their content easier to find on the Web—it's engaging, relevant, and the people who produce it actually talk back to us.  It's time to wake up.  We need to get out in the field and understand people—what motivates them, and why they behave the way they do.

The reason why I say content is the next killer app is because it's the content that will keep us engaged, and coming back for more.  It's the special sauce that can take a consumer and make them an active participant.  Point in case, last week Herb Sawyer talked about his "non savvy" Mom using Google to find some information she was looking for. Upon arriving to a site which she spent a considerable amount of time on, she noticed an area called "comments" and so she left one.  Then she came back and left some more.  It wasn't a site she found, but a blog.  Not a fabricated one, but a real one, the author wasn't a copywriter, they were an ordinary person.  Mrs Sawyer never even knew she was on a blog.  All she knew was that she was having a good experience with it—so she stuck around, participated and came back for more.

Mrs. Sawyer is my hero.  I think she's going to give the industry a run for our money—and that's a prediction.

What I Learned In Design School

Yesterday I was part of a communications exercise where we had to tell a story.  I told the story of how a single conversation with my Mom in the middle of the night made it possible me to attend design school (Pratt).  In short, I stated that had that conversation never happened—I wouldn't have been in that meeting room sharing my story to them.  Which made me think of this post as well as the power of a single conversation.  So here it as again—and thank you Mom for helping me pursue my dreams.

Originally posted on 9/25/2006

For every Ying, there needs to be a Yang.  A while back, Design Observer re-printed, “The Top 10 Things They Never Taught Me in Design School.” by New York-based architect Michael McDonough.  It’s a great read and all too true—sadly schools of any type don’t often prepare us for the real world.  But what about the things we DO learn in D-school (Design School)?  How are we influenced during this pivotal moment in our lives?  And does it carry over into life after D-school?  What about values that are instilled in our developing hearts and minds?

I was fortunate enough to attend Pratt for the better part of three and a half years. I received a very unique education which consisted of pioneering the usage of computers in design, cooking fillet mignon in the classroom, welding in workshops, and even posing in the buff for a figure drawing class (I'll explain in face your fears).  I learned a great deal about urban living in the middle of some pretty rough neighborhoods (got mugged at gunpoint in my second week).  But I also learned how privileged I was to be able to receive this kind of education in one of the greatest cities on the planet.

What I learned in D-school has served me well to this very day. Here are a few highlights.  All of the images included in this post were created during my time at Pratt.

What I Learned in D-school:

Work really hard.

Pratt’s Mantra was “Be true to your work, and your work will be true to you”.  This phrase has been branded deep inside my soul.  And we lived it daily at Pratt—the proof was in the amount of lights on during the night.  Everyone stayed up late working on projects because we believed in what we were doing.  Same goes for me today.  If I believe in the work, there is nothing I won’t do to see it through.

Compete.

When we pinned up our projects in front of each other in the classrooms—make no mistake, we were competing.  We were competing against each other because there was mutual respect for our fellow students.  We sharpened each other’s skills this way.  If we were going to put something up on that wall, in front of our professors and each other—it had better  be good.  If it wasn’t, or at least didn’t have the potential to be—we had let ourselves down.

Take criticism.

Having your work up on the wall, in front of your peers taught me how to take criticism.  Yes, my work was shredded to pieces by professors who studied under the likes of Milton Glaser.  Sometimes I took a beating.  But I always dusted off and picked myself up.  I learned early on how to take criticism and use it to make a better product.  D-school taught me how to listen and value the opinions of others and become better for it.

See things differently.

My visual communications professors constantly challenged us to look at things differently.  To never be satisfied with our first ideas—they were merely stepping stones to something better.  When I facilitate ideation sessions, I remember these lessons.  The first ideas can sometimes be really good—but the more ideas build upon each other, the better the chances of ending up with something wonderful.

Embrace new experiences.

I learned how to use computers early on when much of the design world was cutting and pasting away.  If I wanted to do something like create an animation—it might mean learning a new program, doing things like creating 3-D models.  I didn’t know any of this stuff before coming to Pratt, but I left there with a "learn by doing attitude" which enables me to put myself in the shoes of users—do what they do, and a desire to experience things for myself.

Face your fears.

A group of students who wanted to get better at figure drawing agreed to meet one a week after class to continue drawing.  There was only one problem.  We didn’t have models.  So we modeled for each other.  I really didn’t want to get up in front of my fellow students with nothing but my bare assets—however I did want to learn how to draw better.   So I got up on that platform—in full view of my classmates. But once I did it, I felt a sense of accomplishment in staring down my fears—and to this day, it takes a lot to rattle me.  After all, once you do something like that—even the most demanding work experience seems tame in comparison.

Build something.

The mask I designed here was created in one evening.  But before I started working on it, I had to show a sketch to my professor.  The initial sketch didn’t do the actual mask justice—my professor wasn’t very impressed at the idea until he saw the execution.  This taught me the value of executing ideas rapidly.  Sometimes people need to see, touch and feel to believe.

Have Fun.

Having fun is probably THE most important thing I learned in D-school.  One of my projects was to design a better “choking victim poster”.  So I thought, why can’t a poster about choking be fun?  And with a little inspiration from Keith Haring, I did just that.  Work doesn’t have to feel like work—I had a lot of fun at Pratt staying up all night working on projects. My roommates and I would wake each other up in the middle of the night if one of us was working, just to get feedback.  We had fun with our work and with each other. We didn’t take ourselves too seriously.  All things that should ring true in our serious corporate settings (but don't always).

I guess that’s about it.  And if you think about it, you really don't need to go to Design School for any of this—but for me, it did the trick.  And the funny thing is that if you look at this collection of thoughts and images, you see very little which directly corresponds in a literal fashion with my actual practice in digital experience design (at least not how it’s practiced today).  There are no flows, sitemaps or personas.  These are skills I had to learn on the job. Marketing, user-centered design, copywriting—these were all developed through real work experience in the field.  However I still tap into the core values I leaned at D-school.  Maybe what it comes down to was being influenced.  But as we know, a little influence goes a long way.

Is Twitter Useless, Asinine, or The Crocs of The Web?

(click on image for larger version)

I've been on Twitter since February of  this year and looking back—it has become a medium I am very comfortable with.  I use it to share links, alert people in my network, provide updates, read news headlines—and yes do that conversation thing commonly known as listening and talking.  It's become a part of my daily routine—and I use it when it makes sense for me.

But Twitter isn't for everybody—I've called it the Crocs of the internet many times.  Just like Crocs, you either love it, hate it or don't see the point.  Twitter got so hot, so quickly that many of us thought it would have been replaced by now.  But it seems to keep chugging along.  So the question is—do you still love it, still hate it, or simply think it's asinine?

Oh, and I'm having a Big Mac.

Fuzzy People, Marketing's Perfect Storm, + Hard Rock

Update: I just saw Bernard's slides and they ROCK.

Microsoft's User Experience Evangelist Chris Bernard and myself are teaming up tonight for a complimentary event at Chicago's Hard Rock Hotel.  I've added some new slides at the end of my Fuzzy Tail preso and am ready to go.  Here's how we've billed the event which is part of CM's "Spark Sessions:

Chris Bernard — User Experience Evangelist, Microsoft

"Marketing's Perfect Storm" — Technology, media and the user experience are on a collision course. Could this be marketing's perfect storm?

David Armano — Logic+Emotion blogger and VP Experience Design, Critical Mass

"Fuzzytail" — Collaboration 2.0 is messy business. We must define ourselves and what we do more broadly. It's about going from left brain to right brain and ending up on "light brain".

If you are in Chicago tonight, you can still register here and stop by.  Who knows, maybe with a few cocktails, Chris will address the Microsoft/Facebook buyout rumor?  ;-)

Lou Rosenfeld on Book Design

If you're writing a book—you might as well take the advice from someone who's already written a few.  Louis Rosenfeld is considered one of the founding fathers of modern day information architecture and co-wrote the "Polar Bear" book titled "Information Architecture for the World Wide Web".  I recorded a portion of his talk at the design research conference and found this bit the most interesting.  Rosenfeld is currently in the process of publishing a new book through Rosenfeld Media.  When I say he's in the process, I mean he literally unveiled the cover design for the new series at the conference.  In fact, I held off at posting this video so he could inform the author of the decision as opposed having them find out via a blog.

But here's the takeaway from this clip.  Rosenfeld's advice to others who are in the process of writing books is to hire an art director.  His larger point was that while it's easy for consultants to point to "cobblers children" tendencies to our clients—we're just as susceptible to the same pitfalls and need to know when we might be heading in the wrong direction.

Rosenfeld compares his own art direction to the final cover design and admits that he got too close to it and needed some help to get it back in the right direction.  As someone who's been a creative director—I understand exactly where he's coming from.  Even if you're qualified to do something yourself—often times it's best to invest the time to find and direct the right resource and empower them to do what they are really good at.  This isn't mandatory if you don't have the budget or resources—but if you do, sometimes it's better to bring in the right talent and a little objectivity.

Rosenfeld was also candid enough to share some of his own research in where he conducted a study to find out what was the considered the most well designed book in the user experience field.  Can you guess what it was?

No surprises—one of my favorites: "Don't Make Me Think" by Steve Krug.  If he did the same study on brand building—I wonder if the result would have been The Brand Gap? (another of my favorites).  Anyway, check out the video as it provides a good insight.  This will be my last post on L+E related to the Design Research conference.  I will do one last wrap up on Experience Matters.  Oh, and on a related note—I will have the honor of co-keynoting CanUX 2007 along with Rosenfeld.  That should be a learning experience.  :)

Picture of the Day

Lunch out on the lake with some folks from Hot Studio.

Use Caution When Asking People What They Want

It's day 2 at the deign research conference in Chicago.  Steven Herbst of Motorola drove in interesting point home with a video from a focus group.  You have to be careful when putting folks in a "lab environment"—essentially asking them for their opinions.  Watch the video and make your own conclusions.

Here's what I did before putting this video up.  I turned off the sound and watched the video a couple of times.  This is just my own personal opinion as I am no body language expert—but the people didn't seem to move naturally.  It's as if they were searching for right answers.  The one guy who kept hunching over the table reminded me of an inspector—looking for flaws in something.

Many of us who are in search of innovation like to use the phrase "unarticulated or unmet needs"—meaning that a user may not always be able to tell us what they really need, and we have to read between the lines.  So I'm liking Steven's position here that it's best to be "cautious" in this context.  I intepret this to mean that we don't throw the lab environment out with the bathwater—but using caution is a good thing.  By the way—whenever I would observe user testing behind a 2 way mirror—I often times would plug my ears and watch people's body language.  Sometimes what people don't tell us in a test setting speaks volumes. 

What do you do?

Design Research Conference Day 1: ModeMapping + How To Lie With Research

Day one of IIT ID's Design Research conference is done and I'm already looking forward to day two.  Couple of observations right off the bat:

1. Design and research go hand and hand.
2. Design Research, like any research can be manipulated.

Let's start with point one.  The above video was from Stuart Karten's excellent presentation.  Stuart talked about a technique his teams use called "ModeMapping".  As far as I could tell, ModeMapping starts off with spending considerable time with actual users (not in the focus group or interview setting).  After qualitative research is conducted in the field with multiple users, their "modes" are mapped out.  Modes are kind of like the "mindset" a person is in during a specific event or period (think, "I'm in shopping mode").  The Maps are then compared and analyzed for patterns, "shared experiences" etc.   Stuart also stressed that his teams spend at least an entire day with an individual before a map could be visualized.

The thing that impressed me most about Stuart's presentation was that at the end he showed the actual design solutions which were informed by the research and ModeMapping process.  It was evident right off the bat that the solutions were closely tied to the research.  When I asked him what he attributed this to, his answer was simple and direct.

"It's because our designers do all of the research"

Fair enough.  In digital design—it's often times interaction designers etc. who conduct studies in the field as well as usability tests etc.  But in other areas such as marketing, Planners are the ones who do this type of research.  But Planners aren't typically the ones who end up designing the solution (in most cases).  So here's an interesting scenario—are these two different models with distinct benefits?  Or is marketing so fundamentally different that the people doing the research shouldn't be the ones designing the solutions.  Or are there overlaps?  What do you think?

Now to point #2.  First you have to watch the entire video before reading further.  Don't question why—just do as I say!  There, are you done?  OK, Dan Saffer of Adaptive Path gets us thinking about how research can be abused.  Design research—despite the mystique is still—guess what?  Research.  Which means that like all research, it can be skewed to meet the needs of the researchers.  Dan's presentation was funny and engaging and it made an important point—designers can fall prey to the same temptations as any researcher, framing their findings to support their own agendas.  I thought it was a point worth making, and the delivery was as fun as it was thought provoking.  But what do you think—are designers immune to these temptations?  Oh wait, did I just asked a loaded question?

If you were at the conference, (or not) feel free to speak your mind—it's your turn to talk back.  I'm looking forward to day 2.

"Digabilities": Essential "Abilities" for Thriving in The Digital Age

I've been watching this short interview with Bob Garfield of Advertising Age over and over again.  I didn't want to take everything he said at face value.  And I felt he over simplified some things by stressing the importance of "blogger outreach" which I think as a solution isn't always the right one.

But something kept drawing me back to this video.  And after watching it for like the 10th time it hit me.  Do most Ad agencies see digital as a merely another channel or a way of life?  I wonder if it's that simple?  Has the modern agency re-tooled the "advertising factory" enough to truly thrive in the digital age?  This is something I've been chewing on a bit.

So with this "inspiration" fresh on my mind—I put together a set of 12 "Digabilities": Essential "Abilities" for Thriving in The Digital Age.  It's a work in progress and I published the entire list on the Critical Mass blog (another work in progress).  You can read the entire piece there.  Here's a snippet:

"6. Talkability
In the digital age customers get to talk back. Monologue dies while dialogue thrives. Customers demand to have a say, and want to hear back from the brands they empower. Conversation rules—dictation slowly erodes away. If you want to get customers talking about you—talk with them and help facilitate how they can better talk to each other.

7. Listenability
While the digital age empowers consumers with new tools and technologies to converse and connect—marketers are empowered to listen. There are more ways than ever to hear the customer out, listen to what they are saying—and discover the patterns. In the digital age listening becomes more important than talking. Understanding replaces mass-market communications and relationships take the place of messages.

8. Usability
In the digital age we witness an abundance of complexity and a scarcity of simplicity. Features lead to frustration and options paralyze. The demand to humanize technology reaches critical mass—usability becomes a key differentiator as consumers cry out for the conversion of complex to simple."

Continue to Experience Matters for the entire post.

Life In The Overlap

Ever had a hard time describing what your job is to someone else who actually works directly in your industry?  If so—you may be living life in the overlap.  Here's the thing—life in the overlap 'aint always easy.  With community playing an important part in how we relate to each other, how do we pick and choose communities that we feel like we "fit into"?  Or even more importantly—what communities will accept us when we can barely define ourselves.

This blog is an overlap blog—meaning it doesn't go very deep on one topic (though if you are an avid reader, you can detect the patterns).  But one of the things I grapple with on a regular basis is should I even try to target an audience?  Marketing teaches us to target audiences—to go after "key" segments and prioritize our offerings to the wants and needs of that group.  What I've experienced here has been mostly the opposite.  I didn't choose my audience, you chose me.  I'm always fascinated by the types of people who will come here.  Librarians, planners, UX people, Ad people, Tech people, Strategists, Psychologists and even Preachers—the list goes on as I get a pretty eclectic mix of folks.

That's life in the overlap for ya—you never know what kind of people you'll attract.  But I said it's not easy and it isn't—professionally you have to be at the right kind of organization if you work this way (thankfully I am) and in my experience, the "down side" is that you don't always get invited to the industry "parties" or "clubs" that you'd love to be a part of.  Doesn't matter how much of an audience you have—if you can't be packaged neat and tidy, sometimes that's just how it goes.

But life in the overlap has it's advantages if you put yourself in the right frame of mind.  I've been thinking about some of the conferences I'm either speaking at or attending and how different each one is.  One minute I'm cavorting with promo marketers, the next I'm hanging out with design strategists, then I'm teaming up with Microsoft, getting my b2b groove on and even playing UX keynote in Canada.

And this is where life in the overlap gets interesting.  I've always framed my true passion as being a creative problem solver—and that's painting with a pretty broad brush.  But at the end of the day—one of the perks of life in the overlap is this:  You get exposed to very different types of people.  And if you are observant enough, they rub off on you—the next thing you know you are taking what you've learned and applying in in a totally "unrelated" context.  And this comes in handy with that whole "problem solving" thing.

So life in the overlap isn't that bad after all.  X+Y+Z=OK.

Navigators, Explorers, and Engaged Participants

Originally posted on 8.22.06

Over the weekend I had three different kinds of interactive experiences.  In each of them, I acted like three different kinds of people (more accurately mindsets). 

A Navigator.  An Explorer.  And an Engaged Participant.  Before I get into how I define these along with examples, allow me to make a few analogies:

Getting to the destination: Have you ever hopped in your car for your weekend getaway and all you cared about was getting there? You couldn’t care less about the scenery you passed on the way to the destination.  All you want to do is get to that beach house, cabin, or whatever so your weekend can begin.  Once you get behind the wheel—it’s all about navigating the path of least resistance.

Taking in the journey: Now suppose that you are on a different kind of trip where you’ve decided to take the side roads and make a few stops along the way.  You’re curious about the area you are traveling in and want to explore what it has to offer.  You still want to get to your destination, but the direct path doesn’t appeal to you as much as the more interesting nooks and crannies that you take in on the “scenic route”.

Stopping by for a spell: So let’s say that time isn’t an issue at all, and you really don’t have a pre-determined destination.  Let’s say you buy a train ticket to a location you’ve never visited and you spend the day there,  You visit with the local people, get to know a few of them by the end of the day, and even take some pictures back with you to share with a few friends.

So back to my three distinct interactive experiences that I had over the weekend.  While doing my online banking, I realized I was being a Navigator. I knew exactly where I wanted to go and what I wanted to do and I quickly plotted my course to arrive at my destination (getting my bills paid).

But then, I turned into an Explorer while going through the RPA site. The site has this really interesting way of “navigating” through it that allows you to move through 3 dimensional space.  There was also a more straight forward navigation bar at the top—but I choose to use my arrow keys to explore the space.  I didn’t care as much about getting to point B as much as I did they way I got there.

And lastly, I acted like an Engaged Participant while playing Verizon’s Beatbox Mixer which I came across on 3 Minds. Since it was Saturday night and I had all the free time in the world—I killed some of that time by playing with the very cool mixer.  I was delighted by the sounds and how I could manipulate and mix the vocals from each artist.  And when I was done, I shared what I had done with some people that I knew would appreciate it.

So that’s my story.  Sometimes we are Navigators.  Sometimes we are Explorers.  And other times, Engaged Participants.  And sometimes we’re all three of these and more.  Food for thought as we think about how we incorporate digital and non-digital experiences in our everyday lives.

IIT Institute of Design: Design Research Conference

My last few posts on the state of advermarketing have made me feel like I need a shower. ;-)  So, I'm really looking forward to attending the IIT Institute of Design Research Conference happening in Chicago next Friday and Saturday.

Wait a minute—what the heck is design research anyways?  OK, well let's take a look at how the folks at IIT are billing the conference:

"The linear business model is in question under the stresses of the current competitive landscape. If ‘business as usual’ embraces silos, roles, and hierarchy, what should ‘business by design’ be? The capability of user-centered research to solve wicked problems, deliver superior and differentiated offering, and win market share, continues to expand. Among corporations and business schools, people are beginning to understand the potential of design in research and across the organization, to develop strategies for addressing the nuances that differentiate markets from one another."

If you read between the lines, what this is saying is simply—"there is another way".

Designers approach problem solving a bit differently than the business world.  Intuition plays a big part of it—much of what Dan Pink wrote in his book "A Whole New  Mind" captures the spirit of how designers look to frame opportunities, define strategies and solve problems.  Pink describe the process as "recognizing the patters" and  "seeing the big picture" through "meta abilities" such as "systems thinking", "gestalt thinking" "holistic thinking", and in recent years—we have come to know it by another name:

Design Thinking

Whatever we want to call it, this kind of ability is gaining traction outside of the design world—as is the demand for individuals and organizations who work this way.  When I wrote my "are you a synthesizer?" post, a lot of folks picked it up —most likely because in their gut, they know there is something to this that needs further investigation and development.

Some of the speakers at the conference include Dan Saffer,  Lou Rosenfield,  and Alec  Bernstein of  BMW  Group to name a few.  I'll be doing some blogging about the event and most likely spitting out some pithy takeaways via Twitter.  I hope to see some of you "marketers" at the event.  Might be a nice change of pace.

I'm going with fellow CM'er David Stallsmith.  If you're going, drop me a line and we'll meet up.

Advertising Is Dead. Hardee's Killed It.

I have never taken a class in advertising or copywriting.  I've never produced a 30 second spot.  I've never worked on a print campaign.  I'm probably not qualified to comment on this ad or the state of traditional advertising.

But I'm going to do it anyway.

As predicted by some—advertising has been reduced to the equivalent of pulling it's pants down and slapping you in the face with it's private parts.  I'm sorry that I'm being so graphic—and I don't even like including this clip on my blog.  No I'm not the target audience for the ad, my guess is that the target is 17+ year old men.

Apparently Hardee's isn't running the ad anymore on TV, but thanks to the Long Tail and advertising's insatiable appetite for buzz, we can stil bask in the glory of this masterpiece on YouTube.  Interestingly enough, the version of the spot that I saw on TV included the Hardee's logo at the end, not Carl's Jr.  Either way, it's a mess.

But like I said, I'm not the target audience here.  So, to the young fast food eating men out in the world—does this speak to you?  To quote my personal hero, General Maximus Decimus Meridius, "Are you not entertained"?

A Prescription For Marketers

View presentation on slideshare

Update
I've made some changes based on feedback—I think it's better, a little less "marketing speak".  See updated deck and comments:

Next Wednesday I find myself on a social media related panel at Promo 2007.  Why am I going?  Event Marketing is a little out of my range, but Herb Sawer from Carmichael Lych put together an interesting line-up including Noah Brier from Naked Communications and Rohit Bhargava of Olgilvy PR.

I'm going to be surrounded by marketers.  Wait a minute—am I a marketer?  Marketing is a broad term and it encapsulates a lot of things.  Much of what I do falls under that category.  In fact, many of you who read this blog probably deal with budgets that fall under either Marketing or IT departments.

So, what am I gonna talk about?  Well, I thought a good place would be what I believe in.  I believe that marketers—especially the "professionals" that call themselves marketers have a fundamental issue we need to confront.

B.S.O.S.
(Bright And Shiny Object Syndrome)

It affects all of us.  You're kidding yourself if you think it doesn't.  There's so much pressure to stay up to speed, things change so quickly—that we've become obsessed with the new, newer, latest, greatest, shiny, sparkly, dangling thing.  But don't be fooled—It's just as bad to dismiss a trend that we may know very little about just because we're sick and tired of hearing about it.

You don't get brighter or shinier than "2.0".  There are so many possibilities—so many opportunities that it's intoxicating.  Hence the addiction to it.  So what do we do?  Do we ignore how advances in technology are changing the face of marketing?  Do we embrace every new trend with unbridled enthusiasm?  Do we sit on the sidelines, skeptical and wary?  Do we experiment?  I'm proposing a "prescription" for the ailment—it comes in 3 4 parts:

1. Quantitative Research (3rd party research, reports etc.)

2. Qualitative Research (Ethnography, Interviews etc,)

3. Personal Experience (Experimentation, usage, adoption)

1. Doing our homework (3rd party research, reports etc.)

2. Talking and walking with people (ethnography, observation etc.)

3. Learning by doing (experimentation, usage, adoption etc.)

4. Sharing what we know (connectivity, shared experiences + knowledge)

I believe a combination of all three will result in Empathy, Understanding and maybe even a little Experience more openness (or what marketers like to call transparency).  These three four things will help provide an informed perspective so we can pursue the best strategies and experiment in productive ways.   This will help us as we work with clients and/or partners—and it will make for better marketers, marketing and less B.S.O.S. all around.

What else would you add?  I've only got a little over 10 minutes, but if something good comes out of a comment—I'll try to add it to the deck.

Dear Twitterati. You're A Bunch of Lunatics.

9. TWITTER AND ITS MICROBLOGGING ILK.
"What could be more annoying and less useful than a site where thousands of people are given 140 characters to shout out about what they're doing at every moment of the day? The amazing thing is that enough people out there think this mindless stream of ephemera ("I'm eating a tangerine," "I'm waiting for a plane," "I want a Big Mac") is interesting enough to serve as the basis for a viable advertising platform."
Mark Simon, Advertising Age: The 10 Most Asinine Trends And Why You Should Avoid Them

No Mark, you've missed the point.  We don't think it's a viable advertising platform—we think "microblogging" is a viable communications/conversation platform. The media seems to think so too—and so do a few brands.  Call us crazy.  Oh wait—you already did.

Wonder what your answers would be to these 10 questions?

HEROES

Update:
Tip of the hat to Ryan.  The story is now national and CNN has video footage. 

Update:
The teen who grabbed the woman out of the car is Tommy Foust.  Read more about it here.  Would be nice if this got more than local coverage--we all need to hear about more stories like this.

A few hours ago I witnessed something incredible. 

While riding my motorbike I pulled up to a red light adjacent to a train crossing minutes from my home in Glenview IL.  Across the intersection I could make out a few teenagers running across the tracks.  There was something on the tracks—it appeared to be a car, but I couldn't be sure.  The next thing I knew the train crossing lit up and the guards went down.

It all happened within seconds.

I saw 2 young men dash away from the car and literally dive into the weeds next to the tracks.  They were holding something.  SECONDS later—no more than 5 or so, TWO diesel trains ripped the car to shreds.  It might have been a scene out of a movie.  I pulled over my bike to where the teenagers were and two boys emerged from the weeds carrying an elderly woman.  Turns out she mistakingly made a right turn on the tracks and ended up facing an ongoing train.  Her car was stuck on the tracks and she was disoriented.

You won't find any of these details on the story that recently went up on the Chicago Tribune because they are most likely fact checking.   But I was there, and I captured what I saw with my own eyes via Twitter.  There are some very special heroes out there that may be getting some attention from the press in the days to come.  I went up to those young men and could only say this:

"You did something good here—you did the right thing"

Below is the transcript from my Twitter account.  What's worth noting is that it's times like this when we realize the potential of a tool like Twitter.  For the field journalist, Twitter is something to investigate.

...And for the rest of us, I'll say this:
Heroes still exist—and the real ones aren't on a television show and don't have special powers, they're people like you and me.  Those were a couple of brave kids.  They cheated death by SECONDS.  They didn't think, they acted.  Tonight, there's a family and possibly some grandchildren out there who can be very thankful that a couple of outstanding young adults "did the right thing".

Twitter is Down. Digital Conversationalists Left Speechless.

Twitter is suffering a major outage today.  For those of us who use it regularly—we are using other ways to keep the conversation going.  So what are you doing?

10 Questions For The Agency Executive

Many of the senior folks who work at a variety of agencies (design, advertising, PR,—take your pick) are actually digital immigrants vs. digital natives.  This means folks like myself (30-somethings) knew what life was like before the digital revolution.  Digital natives, however have grown up with digital technologies from birth—some have never seen a tape cassette.

In the "1.0" days of the internet for the true believers—it was unthinkable for someone on your team to have never made an online purchase, or performed a transaction online such as banking.  So, here's some food for thought:
Imagine it's the year 2000 and you ask the executive creative director from your agency—the same agency responsible for the re-design of your transactional site, if he/she purchases online regularly.  The answer surprises you when they say that although they like the idea of making a purchase online—they have security concerns and prefer to do their shopping in the real world.

Sounds silly I know.  Now fast-forward seven years.  What kinds of answers would you get if you asked these questions of your agency execs?

1. Do you read blogs?  Which ones?
2. Do you have a personal blog?  What's it about?
3. Do you participate in at least one social network?  Which one?
4. Have you ever uploaded a video online?  What did you use to do it?
5. What's your favorite search engine.  Why?
6. Have you ever used an online classified service like craigslist?
7. Besides making phone calls—how else do you use your mobile phone?
8. Have you ever registered a domain name?
9. Do you use social bookmarks or tagging?
10. Do you use a feed reader of some sort?  Which one?  Why?

Now think about these questions.  What are you looking for in the answers?  You are looking for empathy.  You are looking for a sense of understanding that only comes with experiencing something for yourself.  You are looking for honesty and authenticity.  And you are looking for credibility.  It's not important to have done everything in this list—but it's critical to have done SOME of it.

Nowadays it's near impossible to have a discussion around a brand, marketing, or design strategy without considering the latest wave of how people are using "digital".  Emerging technologies are nearly always part of the equation—and the equation shifts like the desert sands.  And digital isn't even an option—it's mandatory.   So the next time you are in a meeting, a brainstorm, or ideation session from the senior folks at your agency.  Think about questions like these.  How would they answer—and what would the answers tell you about what they really know?

Influence Ripples + Social Media Fragmentation

(click on image to enlarge)

By now most of us wouldn't argue that the media landscape has been fragmented.  In the old days if you wanted to communicate something—you had a few choices.  A marketing campaign fueled mostly by television, magazines and newspapers.  You had all the usual PR methods and of course the press.  Digital happened—eyeballs went to the Web and now you had to add a whole new mix of tactics.  Social Media picked up steam and now you've got another set of options to take seriously.

Social Media Fragmentation?
What I'm wondering about is if we're witnessing fragmentation within the fragmentation?  Meaning that within the realm of social media, you've got an increasing number of places where your content can be digested—if old media was about one big "push" then old social media was also about a similar "push", while the newer social media landscape involves content, community and conversation happening at multiple venues, times and with a varied degree of reach.

My original influence ripples POV focused mostly on the influence of bloggers—while I think the notion of the ripples and their reach/volume is still valid, it's become crystal clear to most of us that social media has accelerated so quickly that we need to look at the bigger picture.  That bigger picture involves multiple platforms and methods to distribute content.  Here's an easy way to look at this—if I really wanted to get the word out on something, I might do the following:

1. Send e-mails to co-workers and friends through several mail groups
2. Post announcement on several online communities such as Yahoo! groups
3. Post update on Facebook
4. Announce news on Linked In network
5. Communicate on Twitter
6. Blog about it
7. Update Website

Multiple Ripples, Conversations and Touch Points
This list can be even more extensive.  I'm just one individual.  Imagine all the ways brands who have committed to leveraging social media have to contend with.  That's a lot of conversations.   But they are all conversations worth having as the marketplace is proving one case study at a time.  As I write this, I'm looking at Dell.com/community.  It looks like they've created a launchpad where you can access all of the areas they are having a dialog with customers.  (Full disclosure, Dell is a Critical Mass client though to date, I have not worked on this account).   I have to applaud this concept though—having  all of these touchpoints accessible in one place seems like common sense.

But you don't have to be a mega brand to appreciate what's going on in this space. Take a look at what Jeremiah Owyang wrote recently after announcing his career move to go work with Forrester:

"When I announced my job change on Monday, I did it in Twitter, I left a series of messages explaining my intent, I saw the replies come back by the dozens. I answered any questions in real-time and the wave grew in energy. As their friends saw people saying “congrats @jowyang” (the “@” symbol notifies me someone is talking to me) it encourages others to click on my name and see what I said. It rippled across the Twitter lake. Finally, I dropped the URL to my blog, and then it spread to the swimmers, then surfers, boaters, and finally the fleet, like this news site (thanks Karl)."

Dropping Many Pebbles in the Pond
Jeremiah's experience perfectly illustrates what I'm saying with the updated Influence Ripples visual.  If we want to influence folks regarding our personal or corporate brands, we've got multiple ripples happening all at once not only in the digital space, but drilling down to the social aspect of it.  It's enough to make your head spin.  But here's the big takeaway from all of this.  Successful personal and corporate brands alike will be the ones who take a holistic view when creating, maintaining and amplifying their ripples.  This means avoiding the temptation to hyper fixate on one venue thinking it's a replacement for another.  If you have cultivated a successful blog experience—thinking Facebook will eliminate the need for a blog (or site) is foolish and/or short sighted.  Facebook is a members only "closed" community.  Blogs are "open" to the global public including the powerful search engines which make the long tail possible. 

Likewise ignoring effective networks even if they create "smaller" ripples is foolish.  Many small ripples can be just as effective as a few large ones.  At some point in the not-so-distant future, the dust will settle and there will be winners and losers (Quechup anyone?) when it comes to the networks most of us leverage.  But what's becoming increasingly clear to most of us—is that like the original media fragmentation, the social version of it will be no less challenging to initiate, maintain and nurture.  We're all going to have to get used to multiplicity—or simply having a few more pebbles in the pond.