tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-101827762024-03-12T20:38:51.404-07:00Nonstop ExpressAt the intersection of Anything and EverythingUnknownnoreply@blogger.comBlogger78125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-10182776.post-63842625728020230562013-03-13T18:26:00.003-07:002013-03-13T20:15:46.298-07:00J.Crew goes Italian<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
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This is a beautiful example of what I'd called "borrowed legitimacy." With a wonderful video, J. Crew aligns itself with fine Italian tailoring.Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-10182776.post-58256272957747786622013-03-13T10:32:00.000-07:002013-03-13T10:32:20.943-07:00SXSW Interactive 2013: five key themes<span style="background-color: rgba(255, 255, 255, 0);">I just got back from SXSW Interactive. Five main themes bubbled up from the sessions I attended:<br /><br />1) How to make "big data" more relevant and more useful for companies and consumers from a product/service, communications and experience standpoint...and the growth of data that's user-generated vs. collected (the "self-trackers" or "quantified self).<br /><br />2) The movement of "computing" from a fixed device (desktop, laptop, phone) to something you wear or interact in physical space: Leap Motion, Basis/Fitbit, smart appliances, sensors, 3D projections, augmented reality, machines the communicate to you or other machines.<br /><br />3) Profound changes to what constitutes the "network": a) device to device communication (Tesco's ordering billboard in South Korea, smart appliances), 2) ambient/background presence that's always on and working...connected to your life vs. just your devices, 3) expansion to home appliances (Nest thermostat, iGrill, Withings scale), and 4) the network that travels with you, wherever you go.<br /><br />4) Huge movement toward making services/devices that help us change ourselves and our behavior...health care, personal finance specifically. This includes both smart product design and behavioral systems design (many PHds work on these projects as consultants)...how to make change possible via small steps, appropriate triggers and contextual reminders.<br /><br />5) Responsive design, meaning platform-agnostic content delivery that's dynamic and predictive. Also a lot of chatter about behavioral design...which seems to involve greater integration into a person's lifestyle, habits and activities.</span><br />
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More to come.Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-10182776.post-43240220612714089152013-02-09T08:56:00.000-08:002013-02-09T08:56:39.746-08:00Signal vs. Noise: swimming in the Sea of RandomnessLast summer, after realizing it's a professional necessity to share and express ideas beyond my daily human interactions, I decided (yet again) to reapply myself to this blog. I developed a nice general content strategy, managed to slot 20 mins or so each week, started jotting down notes more regularly, etc. Truly, I really meant it.<br />
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Then something odd happened: I started reading Nassim Nicholas Taleb's "<a href="http://www.amazon.com/Fooled-Randomness-Hidden-Chance-Markets/dp/0812975219" target="_blank">Fooled by Randomness</a>".<br />
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Of the many interesting topics he discusses with regard to chance and randomness in the financial markets, one specific idea broke through and effectively froze me in my tracks: most of the information coursing through our lives is effectively meaningless, "noise" vs. "signal," and we're better off reading nothing at all. Taleb actively discourages himself from consuming media because so much of it is detrimental to his investing goals. He derides the common person who pores over the Wall Street Journal each morning trying to decipher the current market patterns as akin to reading the remains of a cup of strong coffee; you will see what you want to see and miss what's actually happening.<br />
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Faced with that, I begin to doubt my own ability to add something useful to the info stream. Basically, I got discouraged by thinking that I'd just be adding more noise, and as I searched and consumed information on a daily basis, the hopeless ubiquity of the Internet overwhelmed me. It's the most amazing noise generator of all time, a timesuck of epic proportions if you're not careful about how you search and which threads you follow.<br />
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Back in the early 2000's, lots of people, myself included, we're saying, "This is fantastic! ANYONE can share their ideas!" But change the inflection on "anyone" just a bit, and you can see my point. Unlimited access to publishing and accessing information is a beautiful thing, yet it also creates a messy jumble, for which search algorithms and human aggregators only provide a partial fix. Did I really want to add to the cacophony?<br />
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Over the summer and fall I finished "Randomness" and read it again in short sessions each evening before bed. And finally, the book provided a clear way out of my content generation cul de sac: signal isn't hierarchical or pre-ordained, it actually lies in the eye of the beholder, or as Taleb might say, in the eye of the person analyzing the right data in the right time series. In fact, perhaps the Internet actually provides more signal because it generates that much more noise. If you buy into randomness, it's not a leap to see it as the source of all signal, since you can't sift for gold w/out a stream.<br />
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There's much, much more to think about in Taleb's book, and I have his second and third ones waiting for me. But with regard to this forum, I'm keeping one idea firmly in mind:<br />
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"Go forth and generate content with abandon! With any luck, someone, somewhere, will find some signal in it, and you'll contribute to the beautiful, random jumble of human understanding. If not, don't worry, there's virtually no expiration date on ideas."<br />
<br />Unknownnoreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-10182776.post-67211290807470000482012-07-21T16:30:00.001-07:002012-07-21T16:39:18.243-07:00We will try this yet again.I've been thinking these past few months about putting together a business-related blog or tumblr, a place that would force me to take the pinball machine of ideas out of my head and put it down on paper (so to speak). While charting out this effort, I noticed an assumption that I needed something "new" to get started, that this old blog was insufficiently populated with interesting thoughts, dated in its design, and just not cool enough for what I had in mind.<br />
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That all may be true, but I also recognized a familiar thought pattern: let us imagine perfection rather than move forward with what we have. A mentor of mine puts it this way: "Better to be directionally correct vs. precisely wrong."<br />
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So the goal here is to, on a regular basis, describe seemingly random connections, share (supposedly) interesting impressions, and piece together patterns...relating in some way to communications, products, marketing, and anything else that catches my attention. I make no promises about quality or quantity, but I'm positive that if you come repeatedly, something interesting will pop up.<br />
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Oh, and yes, I'll install some sort of spam filter for the comments...viagra and mail-order brides indeed.Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-10182776.post-82730554641540611572010-10-11T11:25:00.000-07:002010-10-11T11:25:28.596-07:00Time to start dressing the part.Ten months ago, I decided to start dressing like a grown-up, you know, suit jackets, tailored trousers, leather-soled shoes, ties, etc. It just hit me one day. I was tired of the never ending "jeans + something" look, and my job had moved from the cloistered world of creative professional to the business and strategy side of things. <br />
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Anyway, in addition to the numerous personal changes this effort has entailed, which could be the subject of other posts, I have discovered much of interest on the business side of things, such as:<br />
<ul>
<li>We are in the groundswell of an "authenticity and tradition" trend in clothes, the importance of which extends beyond lapel widths and country of origin concerns. Craftsmanship and micro-merchandising are in full swing.</li>
<li>The polo/khaki and T-shirt/denim movements have peaked and are ripe for replacement. </li>
<li>Online communities and self-publishing make it easy for people to find mentors, which in turn can have significant impact in a small group of devotees. This points to a failure of mass merchants and provides an interesting opportunity for them.</li>
<li>From a brand perspective, spend your time with the few than trying to convert the many.</li>
<li>Print/Traditional media is not dead. Not by a long shot.</li>
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More to come.<br />
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Resources/Discoveries<br />
<a href="http://www.putthison.com/">Put This On</a><br />
<a href="http://mostexerent.tumblr.com/">Mistah Wong's Brog</a><br />
<a href="http://www.acontinuouslean.com/">A Continuous Lean</a><br />
<a href="http://www.jhilburn.com/">Custom shirts from J. Hillburn</a><br />
<a href="http://www.amazon.com/Esquire-Handbook-Style-Guide-Looking/dp/1588167461">Esquire's Handbook of Style</a><br />
<a href="http://www.amazon.com/Details-Mens-Style-Manual-Ultimate/dp/159240328X/ref=pd_bxgy_b_img_b">Details' Men's Style Guide</a><br />
<a href="http://www.amazon.com/Suit-Machiavellian-Approach-Mens-Style/dp/0060891866/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1286820879&sr=1-1">The Suit</a><br />
<a href="http://www.herringbone.com/">Herringbone</a><br />
<a href="http://www.howardyount.com/">Howard Yount</a><br />
<a href="http://www.kentwang.com/">Kent Wang</a>Unknownnoreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-10182776.post-45541355167086142642010-03-24T12:13:00.000-07:002010-03-24T12:13:57.026-07:00A primer for all product design from a supposedly passe industry.<a href:"http://www.monocle.com/sections/design/Web-Articles/Adrian-van-Hooydonk/>Adrian von Hooydonk</a>, BMWs design director, discussing the new 5 series Gran Turismo.<br />
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Replace BMW and cars with any other product or service category, and you have a succinct list of guidelines for today's world.<br />
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7:25<br />
Marketing is more about story telling, because Life has become more about experiences than collecting objects or things.<br />
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9:52 <br />
People are treating themselves in more private, internal ways.<br />
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10:45<br />
A vehicle that encourages social interactions and provides luxury...without screaming it.<br />
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11:03<br />
Storytelling and narrative a bigger part of the marketing for all BMW models.<br />
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11:57<br />
People like to surround themselves with distinct, individual choices.<br />
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13:45<br />
Speed of change is greater in Asia, and it deserves greater focus.<br />
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16:00<br />
Despite the global reach of the brand, the BMW customer is motivated by the same core desires and values.<br />
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20:00<br />
Regarding global competition, you're only as good as your last product or design. But reaching BMW's level of expertise and quality takes many years. Heritage of quality is a key ingredient.Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-10182776.post-1112847622997375082010-02-06T13:51:00.000-08:002010-02-06T13:51:32.722-08:00From the archives: Too many notes, Mozart.[Written 10/05]<br />
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Too much information, running through my brain. <br />
Too much information, driving me insane.<br />
--The Police, 1982<br />
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A close friend of mine emailed me recently:<br />
<blockquote>I have 5 email addresses. As of today I have 5,140 songs on my iPod, and I'm considering purchasing a second one. I have Tivo, which is now stacked with shows that I consider interesting and worth watching. I subscribe to 4 podcasts, 3 magazines and 2 newspapers. I send and receive a minimum of 80 work related emails per day--often more than 100. I have voicemail at work, on my mobile and at home.<br />
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Your blog is a current of wind in the hurricane that is media in my (and your readers’) lives. Of course it's important to me, but how can we get it noticed above the din of the everyday?</blockquote><br />
Admittedly, my buddy is a little obsessive/compulsive and suffers from a seriously short attention span. But he's also a prototypical media connoisseur and gadget hound who is drowning under the wave of writing and music available to us all.<br />
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Now the blog-savvy smart ass will simply smirk and say, “Dude. RSS. Bloglines.” True enough, But I think he brings up something larger:<br />
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<b>We're choking on information.</b><br />
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It’s one of those subversive facts about the Internet: we all supposed to feel so “empowered” because we have all these facts at our disposal. Because we can make our voice heard. And don’t get me wrong, it’s great, the most important invention since the printing press.<br />
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But at the same time, my resources far outstrip my time. Sure I can check seven to ten websites and blogs to de-spin something, but it's not practical. Instead, this gnawing doubt that I'm missing out follows me around like a stray dog. And I find myself diving deeper into the <a href="http://longtail.typepad.com/the_long_tail/">Long Tail</a>, mostly discovering new things that match my current tastes and beliefs. <br />
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(Fortuntely, Long Tail filters like <a href="http://www.amazon.com">Amazon</a>, <a href="http://www.cdbaby.com">CDBaby</a> and <a href="http://www.technotati.com">Technorati</a> present the staggering wealth of information in small, suggested chunks. Otherwise I'd go completely bonkers.)<br />
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Here's the thing: There are thousands of whip-smart people out there writing blogs that I’d love to read, that I "need" to read, even. But I choose not to sacrifice that much of my time. I’m not a superhero like <a href="http://scoble.weblogs.com/">Mr. Scoble</a>, nor did I buy a ticket on the <a href="http://hnewlands.typepad.com/">Cardboard Spaceship</a>.<br />
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Marketers and pundits keep telling us that this smorgasbord of choice is a great thing. I'm not so sure. The other day at the grocery store I counted 23 different flavors of single-serving Odwalla juice. 23! And not one of them was what I wanted— plain old apple. As I write this, Technorati is watching 8,479,411 blogs and tracking 1,019,959,253 links. It boggles the mind.<br />
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Studies have shown that when confronted with too many choices, we’re apt to do nothing. Or if we do make a decision, we wonder if it was the “best” choice and feel less satisfied about the whole damn thing. Seth Godin talks a little about it<a href="http://sethgodin.typepad.com/seths_blog/2005/04/sometimes_the_l.html"> here</a> .<br />
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I don’t have a specific solution, except what I described in <a href="http://nonstopexpress.blogspot.com/2005/02/wisdom-of-las-ondas.html">The wisdom of las ondas</a>. Hugh MacLeod over at <a href="http://www.gapingvoid.com=">Gaping Void</a> once blogged something to the effect of “Stop worrying about the technology. Concentrate on trust instead.”<br />
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He was talking about marketer anxiety, but I think it applies to dealing with our mega-networked life as well. Let's stop worrying so much about all the information we're missing. Let's concentrate on what we choose to enjoy instead.Unknownnoreply@blogger.com3tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-10182776.post-79245199741054200552009-09-06T14:00:00.000-07:002009-09-06T14:00:45.020-07:00Web goodies: Monocle, Instapaper and QuirkyInteresting finds from this week:<br />
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Wondering about the nature of what you do for money? Become a member of Fora.TV and hear what <a href="http://fora.tv/2009/04/23/Alain_de_Botton_on_the_Pleasures_and_Sorrows_of_Work">Alain de Botton has to say</a>.<br />
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I spent 30 minutes at <a href="http://www.monocle.com">Monocle</a> and barely scratched the surface. Amazing. Check out <a href="http://ow.ly/nZhZ">this bit</a> on a new shop called The School of Life. (Thank you Poppa L.)<br />
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Instapaper may help solve the whole "too many bookmarks, too many computers" problem by just <a href="http://www.instapaper.com">taking the bookmark out of the equation</a> (Thank you, <a href="http://www.noahbrier.com/">Noah Brier</a>...via Twitter, no less!)<br />
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If you've ever wanted to become an inventor but were too afraid to take the leap, or if you think you'd be a product development genius but don't work for Ideo, head to <a href="http://www.quirky.com">Quirky</a>. It only costs $99 to submit an idea. Giving prod dev and naming feedback is free. (Thank you, <a href="http://www.murketing.com/journal/?p=3962">Rob Walker</a>.)Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-10182776.post-65233618647969945162009-09-06T13:29:00.000-07:002009-09-06T13:29:31.645-07:00Maybe I'm just iltwitterate?My last post has been bugging me all week? Why don't I "get it" with regard to Twitter?<br />
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How I use the technology constitutes part of the problem. I only used my cell phone to post and track others, and now that seems woefully inadequate if you want to really get the most of Twitter. The typing interface along slows the whole process down, especially since you need to use other people's handles, TinyURLs and tags to mine the tweetstream.<br />
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When I started using the service a couple of years ago it was mostly a way to trade small remarks and jokes between a group of friends. I also loved how I could create my own stream and to track the various goings on of people who didn't even know each other. The communication could get so personal and subtle. A lot of fun. Seems very parochial viewed what folks are doing now.<br />
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What's really funny to me is that I argued about its value from the beginning and have defended it several times around the dinner table as extended family expressed uncomphrension, disgust and even fear about "this Twitter thing." And now I'm the one who can't seem to change my lens. Twitter must be a great way to find out more about your interests and "meet" people who hold the same, but at this point, getting more information is hardly what I need--I can barely deal with the infostream I've got. <br />
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Anyway, plenty of companies are using it to market, sell and develop brands. I'm sure at some point the light bulb will go off for me, too.Unknownnoreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-10182776.post-89970745271701685612009-08-30T05:39:00.000-07:002009-08-30T05:39:35.760-07:00"Enough about me. Let's talk about nothing." Why Twitter is bumming me out.<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="http://www.csp.org.uk/images/ISR_logo.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="148" src="http://www.csp.org.uk/images/ISR_logo.jpg" width="200" /></a><span style="font-size: xx-small;"> </span></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: xx-small;">(image taken from www.csp.org.uk)</span></div><br />
I removed the "Follow My Twitter Updates" widget from the right column of this blog. For starters, I haven't posted anything to Twitter in almost a year. (I just can't bring myself to say "tweets" BTW--it sounds so, well, <i>stupid</i>). And the more I see of what actually gets communicated, the more I think it's a waste of time from a macro perspective.<br />
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For example, I was pretty damn shocked when I read the aggregate feed of a very disco-looking, well-staffed "social enterprise" consultancy; not only did they seem overly self-obsessed with their constanting posting on a Saturday, but I found only ONE relatively useful piece of information hiding in a whole page of blahblahblah. One. And this from a group of ubersmart people who will guide large enterprises into a new phase of doing business...or at least they'll try to help large enterprises figure out what to do now that the top's been ripped off of our collective Pandora's Box.<br />
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This blog provides a place for me to collect and communicate stuff I'd roughly categorize as <i>professional</i>, and so you really don't need to know if the dry cleaner broke a button on my favorite dress shirt, or if I want to say "thanks" to @GlibHandle for something about which you know nothing. Unless, of course, if that broken butten or somethingaboutwhichyouknow nothing pulled the lever in the Pachinko Machine that is my brain and something useful tumbled out.Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-10182776.post-3813735025257386512009-08-29T12:15:00.000-07:002009-08-29T12:52:29.845-07:00Pfffft, pffffft, is this thing on?I'll save you an explanation of my blogging silence. Those who know me have come to expect it.<br /><br />Anyway, I found a spare moment a few days ago and stumbled over to <a href="http://russelldavies.typepad.com/planning/">Russell Davies</a>. What a gem. The man just plain buries you in fascinating things. Who knew about:<br /><br />An interesting woman who lives in London named <a href="http://meish.org/">Meg Pickard</a>?<br /><br />The photographer <a href="http://www.joncherry.net/">Jon Cherry?</a><br /><br />Matt Webb's <a href="http://berglondon.com/talks/scope/?slide=1">presentation</a> at a conference called Reboot, during which he talks about the value of <a href="http://berglondon.com/talks/scope/?slide=32">doing something for 100 hours</a>?<br /><br />Summary of which from Mr. Webb as quoted by Mr Davies:<br /><blockquote>Because when you contribute, when you participate in culture, when you're no longer solving problems, but inventing culture itself, that is when life starts getting interesting.</blockquote>And since I actually try to follow the Getting Things Done system, I naturally love the idea of <a href="http://inboxzero.com/">inbox zero</a>.Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-10182776.post-74959630121010969742009-05-23T11:47:00.000-07:002009-05-23T11:53:16.199-07:00Bubbles<a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjx6wxHvbG5yuGrK59SdtLhiQo_gOVHD6KzDcm20qh1EqqU847DvQIKlt5PVUzzDBlBt5XcoYFRvl3VZBvBA7bsVxpkDqXCESxryGu5mA6RyrxrKoqDXPTvSbbLaavaY_NT5ck3/s1600-h/sibs+copy.jpg"><img style="float:left; margin:0 10px 10px 0;cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;width: 400px; height: 267px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjx6wxHvbG5yuGrK59SdtLhiQo_gOVHD6KzDcm20qh1EqqU847DvQIKlt5PVUzzDBlBt5XcoYFRvl3VZBvBA7bsVxpkDqXCESxryGu5mA6RyrxrKoqDXPTvSbbLaavaY_NT5ck3/s400/sibs+copy.jpg" border="0" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5339093819897909938" /></a><br />Good fun is always to be had when we turn on the bubble machine and just watch those bubbles blow. I caught my two little ones as they were watching the bubbles and trying to pop them.Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-10182776.post-3148858062204013902008-12-28T12:00:00.000-08:002008-12-28T13:04:13.058-08:00Missed Delivery: How the New York Times Lost a Loyal Subscriber(I hope the New York Times is listening.)<br /><br />Recently, I canceled my 10-year-old subscription to the New York Times Sunday edition. Nothing shocking here. We moved to Austin, Texas, the Times failed to deliver three weeks in a row, we called to complain, they did nothing, we called again, they did nothing, so we walked.<br /><br />So instead of shuffling to my driveway to look for the blue plastic bag, I'll just walk/drive up the street to buy the paper. If I feel like it, that is, if some other task or interest doesn't take my attention first. Besides, I can always just go online and read the content there.<br /><br />But here's what I find interesting about this mundane event: I LOVE reading the Sunday Times. <br /><br />Even though the sports section talks incessantly about the stupid Yankees, Knicks and Giants, even though the Sunday Styles page trumpeted the goings on of the rich and clueless, this paper, with its great columnists and amazing international coverage, has become an important weekly ritual, one I share with my wife and parents. Sundays are just not quite complete without it. And I subscribed even though there was no financial incentive to do so. <br /><br /><br /><b>What's so wrong with this picture?</b><br /><br />Man, I don't know where to start. <br /><br />1) In a media market openly hostile to newspapers (and paper in general, it seems) subscriptions would seem to be a valuable asset. It's a relationship formed by years of promises kept and payment made. Now mine has been thoughtlessly tossed aside. If the Times plans to try to generate revenue from my online reading, they have an uphill battle.<br /><br />2) I was a loyal subscriber who always paid on time, and the Times let me go without so much as a "make-up" offer. I estimate they'll lose at least 50% of my yearly spend. That was money in the bank, direct debit. All they had to do was deliver my freakin' paper.<br /><br />3) Pushing me to go out to buy the paper physically will install one of those functional irritants that change behavior. Once I get used to NOT reading the Times every Sunday, what's to stop me from simply going to other online sources, like the Guardian or other "liberal news media" outlet? I received The Economist for Christmas. Maybe I'll just buckle down and read that cover to cover instead.<br /><br />4) The poor quality of the local distribution indicates an operational weakness. Maybe all the attention and worry paid to electronic content delivery has made them forget the importance of keeping promises to customers. This is like a phone company that can't assure you of a dial tone.<br /><br />5) The lack of initiative displayed by the phone customer service folks indicates a strategic weakness. Perhaps the Times has let the decline in ad revenues blind them to the value of loyal subscribers. Or maybe they don't see paper subscribers as relevant to the digital world. When my wife called to cancel she was offered NOTHING to keep her. Nothing at all. The phone rep processed her cancellation like an address change.<br /><br />6) My respect for this organization has fallen down a notch. I've been rooting for them (for all the paper newspapers, in fact), because I believe that a vital press is key to a democratic, open society. <br /><br />I'm encouraged by the growth of so-called citizen journalism, but I believe in the value of professionals, and it seems to me that a smart group of people can figure out how to blend the two for better news and reporting. But if they can't deliver the paper I pre-pay for, and if they don't care enough to try to keep me as a customer, maybe they're doomed after all.<br /><br /><b>What would I do?</b><br /><br />I'm not a newspaper exec. I don't really know the industry. But here are a few simple ideas that might save them a few subscribers:<br /><br />1) Pay attention to your physical delivery channel. This is not rocket science.<br /><br />2) Consider offering a financial incentive to subscribe. As I mentioned, I received zero cost benefit for my subscription. Convenience only goes so far. Offer me a special, year-end collection of articles or a calendar or every Krugman/Walker/Friedman column or something.<br /><br />3) Since paper is disappearing, research the next format of "delivery." I think people will still pay to have special content sent to them somehow. Yes, Times Select didn't work, but paying for content is inevitable and common (HBO, Sirius, iTunes, cable). Just because it's "news" doesn't mean it's a commodity. C'mon, you guys can figure this out. (For starters, spend two hours researching Crossfit.com and The Crossfit Journal.)<br /><br />4) Don't forget that as humans we're biased and regional by nature. Technology exists to customize information delivery. Use it. Give me my Times. Use predictive modeling (or whatever they call it) to suggest stories I might find interesting. Allow me to choose to read stories that are diametrically opposed to my point of view. Give me a social and personal reason to want to read you. TimesPeople may be a start, but to me it looks like a lot of work. I want the news SERVED to me.<br /><br />5) Divide up your audience and serve each one. Painfully obvious, the Silents, Boomers, Gen X, Gen Y and Millennials each have different ways of staying up on things. I don't see any reason why NYT content and/or nyt.com can't keep up with them all.<br /><br />As I said, I hope someone in New York is listening, and not just because I'm a jilted subscriber. The future of their company depends on it.Unknownnoreply@blogger.com5tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-10182776.post-9628564545271244182008-06-06T11:53:00.000-07:002008-06-06T11:55:22.414-07:00Tumblr activity had been high.Check out my Tumblelog for some interesting links, comments, etc. It's where I bookmark interesting things I come across during my research.<br /><br /><a href="http://nonstopexpress.tumblr.com/">Nonstop Express.2</a>Unknownnoreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-10182776.post-86427623456542067072008-05-26T20:46:00.001-07:002008-05-26T20:46:37.685-07:00Looking for what we can't see.Due to the completely underwhelming response to <a href= "http://nonstopexpress.blogspot.com/2008/04/lets-play-game.html">my last post</a>, it's up to me to try and make sense of the quotes from Surowiecki and Taleb.<br /><br />In thinking about it, these points struck me:<br /><br />• that our complex social and financial systems are vunerable to "inevitable and random accidents"<br /><br />• that the increasing interconnectedness of said systems spreads the impact of these accidents quickly and unexpectedly<br /><br />• that the decreasing physical limitations in finance and information further inflate the likelihood of unforseeable events, aka Black Swans<br /><br />• that humans are markedly incapable of forecasting the unknown<br /><br />The more connected and digital things become, the more vulnerable the norms are to disruptive change. (This is painfully obvious in media and finance.) It plays into our herd instincts, which as we know, can result in suicidal stampedes and mass delusion.<br /><br />As a company trying to develop relevant products and tell compelling stories, I think this extends beyond the basic "markets change quickly" bullet point. To me, it means that the illusion of control many of us still cling to has become even more false. <br /><br />Events and opinions can cascade fiercely, no matter if they're based in fact or not. So, really, what you have to rely on is an honest viewpoint. Be true to yourself and give yourself a fighting chance. Falling back on spin and lies or hubris might save you in the short run, but long-term you'll find yourself without a market or a constituency.<br /><br />I've got an OCDMBA friend who invariably describes how he's just waiting to wake up one day laid off and destitute. It's a joke, sort of. And although I don't want to live my life waiting for the other shoe to drop, it seems to me that today's world demands that companies actively try to forecast their demise.<br /><br />If you're not figuring out how someone or something could disintermediate you or what parts of your business have value beyond a single market or audience or technology, then you're setting yourself up to fail. Look at the music industry. Failure to adapt to unforeseen, cataclysmic change. It's probably what we'll be saying about Ford in five years.<br /><br />And I know that it's close to impossible to forecast the future with precision, but without doing that exercise we confine ourselves to being relevant yesterday, not today. Those unforeseen accidents or flukes are in fact a normal part of existence, so we better do our best to prepare ourselves for their arrival.Unknownnoreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-10182776.post-7624025728588176492008-04-08T19:40:00.000-07:002008-04-13T18:17:16.546-07:00Let's play a game.I often make mental notes when reading: "Ah, THAT's an interesting connection! Great for the blog." Sometimes, often just before falling asleep, I actually write the posts in my head. But, alas, when I wake up the grain of interestingness or relevance quickly vanishes.<br /><br />I'm struggling with this right now. <br /><br />Sitting in my To Do box are an article by James Surowiecki on <a href="http://www.newyorker.com/talk/financial/2008/02/11/080211ta_talk_surowiecki">the bond wackiness</a> that became widely known earlier this year and a printout of <a href="www.edge.org/3rd_culture/taleb04/taleb_indexx.html">an interview with Nassim Nicholas Taleb</a>, author of The Black Swan.<br /><br />Since I can't remember exactly what struck me about these two pieces, I'm going to give you the two sections I carefully underlined back in February. The idea is that might tell me what you think they might mean--and probably make more interesting connections than I can.<br /><br />In the more probable case that no one responds, I'll cobble something together in a week or so.<br /><br />Here you go. Have fun.<br /><br /><i>Surowieki</i><br /><blockquote> In that sense, the potential collapse of monoline insurers looks like a classic example of what the sociologist Charles Perrow called a “normal accident.” In examining disasters like the Challenger explosion and the near-meltdown at Three Mile Island, Perrow argued that while the events were unforeseeable they were also, in some sense, inevitable, because of the complexity and the interconnectedness of the systems involved. When you have systems with lots of moving parts, he said, some of them are bound to fail. And if they are tightly linked to one another—as in our current financial system—then the failure of just a few parts cascades through the system. In essence, the more complicated and intertwined the system is, the smaller the margin of safety.</blockquote><br /><i>Taleb</i><br /><blockquote> Take the Google phenomenon or the Microsoft effect — "all-or-nothing" dynamics. The equivalent of Google, where someone just takes over everything, would have been impossible to witness in the Pleistocene. These are more and more prevalent in a world where the bulk of the random variables are socio-informational with low physical limitations. That type of randomness is close to impossible to model since a single observation of large impact, what I called a Black Swan, can destroy the entire inference.<br /><br />This is not just a logical statement: these happens routinely. In spite of all the mathematical sophistication, we're not getting anything tangible except the knowledge that we do not know much about these "tail" properties. And since our world is more and more dominated by these large deviations that are not possible to model properly, we understand less and less of what's going on. </blockquote>Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-10182776.post-88227090898682624442008-04-08T19:17:00.001-07:002008-04-08T19:38:57.833-07:00I'm not dead. Really.Yes, I'll admit that this blog is on life support.<br /><br />Five months ago, my wife and <a href="http://just-add-water.typepad.com/">doubled the size of our family</a>, and frankly, blogging has fallen even farther down the list of things I should do.<br /><br />How much time and energy do the little ones require? My fanatical devotion to <a href="http://www.crossfitoakland.com">fanatical exercise</a> has also taken an extreme hit.<br /><br />What's funny is that during this amazing dry spell (3 posts in nine months!) I've been asked many times about blogging. How you do it technically. How you do it strategically. I always mumble about the technical stuff but then proclaim loud and clear that you must post often and regularly. Fortunately, no one to whom I tell this seems to have bothered checking my own blog output.<br /><br />I made a New Year's resolution to post one time per week. Cough. Then I changed that to one time per month. Double cough. Now, I think I'll be happy with one every six weeks. We'll see.<br /><br />Some link goodness:<br /><a href="http://www.fora.tv">Fora.<span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_0">tv</span></a><br /><a href="http://www.thelongnow.org">The Long Now Foundation</a><br /><a href="http://www.tinyurl.com">Tiny URL</a>Unknownnoreply@blogger.com3tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-10182776.post-81661501818649585302008-01-13T20:32:00.000-08:002008-02-23T17:19:14.079-08:00Oh yes, this Web is tangled.Marketing folks love to make charts. One of my favorite is the "<a href="http://images.google.com/imgres?imgurl=http://www.ehlite.com/services/mag/3/PURCHASING-FUNNEL-1.gif&imgrefurl=http://www.ehlite.com/services/mag/3/1.asp&h=224&w=320&sz=10&hl=en&start=1&sig2=DE_0AVyfpOeCh-yuknhwNw&tbnid=oDXAO1aZTsx5WM:&tbnh=83&tbnw=118&ei=kv2IR8epK5CeiwHF6LD_Cw&prev=/images%3Fq%3Dpurchasing%2Bfunnel%26gbv%3D2%26svnum%3D10%26hl%3Den%26safe%3Dactive%26sa%3DG">purchasing funnel</a>," a much maligned diagram of a supposedly linear train of thought that leads one of us consumer sheep to do something or change an opinion. It's a part of old-think based on a virulently individualistic view of people's behavior and the efficacy of one-way marketing.<br /><br />The reality, of course, is quite different, more random, more reliant on the opinion of others and serendipitous collisions of interest and information. (I think the funnel really looks more like a tangled ball of string.)<br /><br />Since I've just finished reading <a href="http://www.amazon.com/Herd-Change-Behaviour-Harnessing-Nature/dp/0470060360">Herd</a>, I've been thinking a lot about how and if our seemingly innate social urges affect how we make decisions, or not. The <span class="blsp-spelling-corrected" id="SPELLING_ERROR_0">Internet</span>, of course, is a giant, steaming <span class="blsp-spelling-corrected" id="SPELLING_ERROR_1">cauldron</span> of opinions, and a recent pinball thought process brought the idea to life.<br /><br />It all started with a mistakenly accepted <a href="http://www.twitter.com/Timbo_">Twitter</a> feed, moved on to the Amazon <a href="http://www.boingboing.net/2007/11/20/amazon-kindle-the-we.html">Kindle</a>, swung by Jeff Jarvis' <a href="http://www.buzzmachine.com/">Buzz Machine</a> and <a href="http://andrewkeen.typepad.com/">Andrew Keen's</a> idea that the great "democratization" promised by Web 2.0 will actually reduce the quality of our culture.<br /><br />I know, it sounds weired, but here I go anyway:<br /><br />As you might know, I've been messing around with Twitter lately. Due to a strange miscommunication with <a href="http://www.twitter.com/iamthelovejoy">a friend</a>, I've been following the updates of <a com="" ev="">Evan Williams</a>, one of the people who created Blogger and founded Twitter. In one of his "tweets" (last time I use that phrase), he mentioned that he had purchased a Kindle from Amazon.<br /><br />So, naturally, I check out the Kindle (which looks pretty cool, I think) and then start <a href="http://www.google.com/search?client=safari&rls=en&q=kindle+good+bad&ie=UTF-8&oe=UTF-8">searching</a> for other opinions on the thing.<br /><br />Some folks absolutely hate it for it's clunky design, <span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_2">DRM</span> and paid access for direct delivery certain blogs and magazines (although apparently you can also surf the web and get them for free). <span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_3">BoingBoing</span>, in addition to a <a href="http://gadgets.boingboing.net/2007/11/19/amazon-kindle-ebook-1.html">"yes but not yet"</a> review, points to Amazon's<a href="http://www.boingboing.net/2007/11/20/amazon-kindle-the-we.html"> <span class="blsp-spelling-corrected" id="SPELLING_ERROR_4">schizophrenia</span></a> when it comes to digital content delivery. Others, however, <a href="http://blogs.zdnet.com/hardware/?p=1023"> love it</a> for the ease of purchase, portability and relatively low per-book cost. (And maybe just because a bunch of other people hate it.)<br /><br />For the record, if I were a business traveller who read a lot, I'd buy one, which I guess is saying that if I had to travel for work I'd buy one. I care that much about the <span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_5">DRM</span> on a personal level and figure the market will sort that out in the long run. As for it being ugly and clunky, I don't think it's that bad. It's not sleek and sophisticated like an iPhone, yet somehow it "looks" like it fits with a portable book reader. I can't explain why, but it does. Anyway, that's not my point here.<br /><br />While pondering the whole Kindle thing (Amazon has evidently been selling quite a few of them), Mr. Williams posted about listening to Mr. Keen at a conference--evidently HIS whole "Web 2.0 = Marxism" thing is a bit muted in public as opposed to in print. I haven't read Keen's <a href="http://www.amazon.com/Cult-Amateur-Internet-Killing-Culture/dp/0385520808/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1199676452&sr=8-1"> The Cult of the Amateur</a>, but I imagine that, like most of those "THE NEXT BIG THING" books, once you get inside the story you find the necessary shades of grey and maybe even some points you hate/like depending on your preconception of the book is (like/hate) in the first place.<br /><br />With this in the back of my mind, however, I stumbled upon <a href="http://www.buzzmachine.com/2007/11/20/kindle/">a Jarvis </a><a href="http://www.buzzmachine.com/2007/11/20/kindle/">post</a>about the Kindle. Now, I don't follow Buzz Machine, I don't know Mr. Jarvis personally (I'm sure he's a nice guy) and I respect his campaign to call Dell out for its crappy customer service, but his Kindle thoughts made me think that maybe Keen isn't so crazy after all.<br /><br />Not that Jarvis is some hack posting garbage from the hinterlands, far from it, but his post read like a shot from the hip, based completely on his conception about how a computer-like device should work. He finds the <span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_6">DRM</span> abhorrent, stupid even, and wonders why anyone would pay for blogs they can get for free. It's a great question, but the Kindle is made primarily for BOOKS, not blogs, and reading books on a laptop or iPhone, as he suggests, would just plain suck.<br /><br />There's a glimmer of an interesting idea in his post about whether the Kindle is a device that's trying to keep an antiquated form of communication alive, but Jarvis seems to have already decided that books are dead...and I'd say that's premature. In either case, he's not the market for the device, yet he fails to mention this, which I think points to a lack of expertise and perspective as a product reviewer. Yet his blog is very popular--and so maybe Keen is right in a way that the web has or will reduce the quality of the information we choose to read.<br /><br />To be clear, I've got no beef with Jeff Jarvis. Many, many people read him, and he's incredibly involved in the <span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_7">Blogosphere</span>.<br /><br />Here's my point: Thanks to all these interconnected, online communication streams, your idea/product/service will eventually be subject to reviews and opinions that fall far short of the forethought and research you'd like to see from a mainstream journalist, to say nothing of the on-the-cuff "you suck" posts or deliberate misinformation. (No breakthrough idea there, but it's a bit more complex when you dig into it.)<br /><br />So, Keen does have a point. But unlike him, I don't think this is a travesty. Sure, it puts tremendous pressure on your "official" communications to be even more honest and objective. It requires you to employ someone to monitor what folks are saying about you. You may even need to address misinformation. But on the other hand, instead of a slow-moving, traditional marketing campaign, you can count on the web to spread the word for you--quickly and for free. And the honest nature of peer referrals makes them so much more compelling than controlled corporate speak.<br /><br />So services like Twitter play a new, vital role in the mix. One little post from Evan Williams and I set off to see what all the fuss was about. I imagine many others did the same thing. If I had a new product, I'd be trying to get any existing customers to "tweet" about it, that's for sure. As an article from the Harvard Business Review shows, customers who bring others to your company are <a href="http://harvardbusinessonline.hbsp.harvard.edu/hbsp/hbr/articles/article.jsp?ml_action=get-article&articleID=R0710J&ml_page=1&ml_subscriber=true">actually more valuable</a> than those who spend the most.<br /><br />But that's the topic of another post. This one is already starting to look like a tangled ball of string.Unknownnoreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-10182776.post-85783656492424698002007-10-12T15:44:00.000-07:002007-10-12T11:19:39.370-07:00Opportunity in the flight of mass?I read an article in the New York Times a few weeks ago about American <a href="http://query.nytimes.com/gst/fullpage.html?res=9B00E2DF1031F935A1575AC0A9619C8B63">designer jeans companies</a>. Evidently, many small brands choose to manufacture their lines domestically, specifically in Los Angeles, for both economic and quality reasons.<br /><br />Overseas, they can't afford the required large runs, nor can they find the expertise needed to painstakingly weather, customize and otherwise jack up beautiful, high-quality denim fabric so hipsters will buy it.<br /><br />The story made me wonder if that might be the States next manufacturing role; creator and producer of truly unique, practically bespoke products that require more hands-on attention than mass or even mass customized.<br /><br />We certainly can and will do it with ideas. Making actual things, on the other hand, has seemed to slip away from us.<br /><br />One thing is for certain, however. Products like +$200 denim require have to be what <a href="http://www.madetostick.com/index.php">Chip and Dan Heath</a> call "heavy on ideas." In a recent <a href="http://www.fastcompany.com/magazine/118/the-inevitability-of-300-socks.html">Fast Company article</a> they discuss how luxury has moved from status to personal pleasure and self-expression.<br /><br />And that means Ninja Warrior branding and fantastic storytelling, two more things we thrive at in this country.Unknownnoreply@blogger.com3tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-10182776.post-61682130831627481602007-10-09T15:39:00.000-07:002007-10-09T15:44:19.517-07:00Who do you REALLY agree with?While admittedly crude, <a href="http://www.wqad.com/Global/link.asp?L=259460">this short quiz</a> will give you an idea of which presidential candidate mostly closely aligns with your views, or vice versa.<br /><br />Funny how our external choice of individual (insert "brand" if you want to get wonky) doesn't always match our internal preference.<br /><br />My quiz went Dodds, Biden, Obamba/Clinton. I don't even know who Dodds is, and my impressions of Biden are overwhelmingly negative. But my winning total of 36 seems low, so perhaps I don't agree much with anyone.<br /><br />What about you?Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-10182776.post-24773310975593821852007-08-24T10:14:00.000-07:002007-08-24T10:34:15.126-07:00It's not just a matter of laziness.Yes, the old blog has gone a bit fallow again. Work, family and exercise have all taken greater amounts of time. And, I freely admit, I'm a super-skilled procrastinator when it comes to writing.<br /><br />But lots has been going on. I attended my first <a href="http://russelldavies.typepad.com/planning/2006/10/coffee_all_over.html">Likemind </a>in July. The <a href="http://twitter.com/Timbo_">Twitter experiment</a> has been sputtering along. I've been posting things of interest to my <a href="http://nonstopexpress.tumblr.com/">Tumblelog</a>--I find it so much easier than posting to the blog. Which falls in with all the <a>latest talk</a> about "micromedia" etc.<br /><br />And I have some new thoughts on "engagement" to be blogged about soon. (My friend Ambi down in Buenos Aires posted a comment that forces me to respond...just like when we worked together.)<br /><br />If you're looking for some brain food, check out <a href="http://planning-outside-in.blogspot.com/2007/08/way-forward.html">this presentation</a> made by Mark Lewis. There's some definitely wonky stuff in there, and like all presentations you really need people talking to make it work best, but I think he's on to some very important shifts in how brands need to communicate.<br /><br />Also, an earlier post discusses the <a href="http://planning-outside-in.blogspot.com/2007/07/liquid-communication.html">liquid nature of communication</a>, an idea that really fits with my "information is water" schtick.<br /><br /><b>Why would this be interesting or important if you're not a communications person?</b> Because, man, that's how ideas and information get transmitted, and that's how things move in our world.Unknownnoreply@blogger.com4tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-10182776.post-81366486717195921852007-06-19T12:10:00.000-07:002007-06-24T17:55:55.322-07:00What's behind simple engagement?I've lapsed on the blogging again. Sorry if you've been checking in.<br /><br />This will ramble as I'm a bit pressed for time, but in the past two weeks I've been thinking a lot about how specific technologies stick with me.<br /><br />I started using <a href="http:nonstopexpress.tumblr.com"><span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_0">Tumblr</span></a> and really like it--I can map my online thought process and share interesting discoveries quickly and easily. It helps me interact more with the stream of information--allows me to export what's running around my head, which in my opinion, represents the start of a creative act.<br /><br />What's interesting about <span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_1">Tumblr</span> is that it makes it so easy to become more engaged with my online activities. I've read a few things that state that "engagement," as in "brand engagement" or "consumer engagement" is now on the ass-end of the evolution curve, and I guess if you take the term to mean "entanglement" or "amusement" or "sticky" that's probably the case.<br /><br />I'm thinking more on the lines of "<span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_2">engagé</span>," of taking part, of moving things forward, of being connected to what's happening. Let's call it "hyper-engagement" for the hell of it. That's still important and relevant, in my opinion. Blogs and <span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_3">Tumblr</span> facilitate a greater connection with online life and help me bridge information sources and idea generation. They widen my mental scope and allow me to share that process.<br /><br />In the communications business we often talk about relevancy and engagement, but the majority of the time we're looking at it from the client's perspective--how to <span class="blsp-spelling-corrected" id="SPELLING_ERROR_4">monetize</span> <span class="blsp-spelling-corrected" id="SPELLING_ERROR_5">some one's</span> attention span or alter their behavior. Often we stop at relevant and interesting or relevant and persuasive. And perhaps that's all we need to do in the short term.<br /><br />But I think in the long term, technologies have to create/facilitate/create hyper-engagement, otherwise the tools are just entertainments. Not a bad thing, to be sure, but far from something that pushes advancement or gives rise to new behaviors, or even better, adds a new dimension to our basic human needs. <br /><br />Here's an example of what I mean: As someone at the very beginning of what demographers call Gen X, I've left <span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_6">texting</span> and tools like Twitter to those with younger and more nimble thumbs. And then I read <a href="http://russelldavies.typepad.com/planning/2007/06/travel_broken.html">a great post</a> by Russell Davies (he's a well-known advertising <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Account_planning">account planner</a> guy who left <span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_7">Weiden</span> and Kennedy to to pursue a mixed grill of interesting pursuits) about being stuck in an airport and how Twitter kept him going.<br /><br />"Huh," I thought, "He's gotta be older than me." So I signed up as an experiment and invited a few friends, and a couple of them accepted.<br /><br />Last week it was cool to receive a few small blips from a close friend of ours who's moving her <a href="http://family-of-five.typepad.com/family_of_five/">family of five</a> to London. It wasn't much, just some complaints about a crappy <span class="blsp-spelling-corrected" id="SPELLING_ERROR_8">Internet</span> connection, but I felt a slightly stronger connection her, even though we didn't really communicate.<br /><br />It's kinda like <span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_9">Tumblr</span>--pretty much one-way and one-to-many--but it sure cut down the distance between us, if only for a few minutes. I'm interested to see how the experiment develops.Unknownnoreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-10182776.post-45653037608153532982007-05-29T15:44:00.000-07:002007-05-29T15:50:49.467-07:00Like a lazy susan of web flotsam.Here's another interesting facet of <span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_0">Tumblr</span>. Called <a href="http://www.tumblr.com/radar">Radar</a>, it shows a collection of the latest items posted to <span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_1">tumblelogs</span> worldwide.<br /><br />Kinda like a mental snapshot. Much shorter than blog entries. But I think you can extrapolate just as much from these crumbs than from longer more journalistic pieces.<br /><br />The smallest creative <span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_2">partum</span> in action. Or at least a fun way to spend five minutes between meetings and catchphrases.Unknownnoreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-10182776.post-65243987014095307312007-05-25T14:28:00.001-07:002007-05-25T14:32:26.763-07:00Getting more and more granular.Paul Saffo said something very important when I saw him a few weeks ago. He believes that the companies and ideas that survive will be those that "harness the smallest creative partum."<br /><br />While thumbing through Russell Davies' blog, I found <a href="http://russelldavies.typepad.com/planning/2007/05/dawdlr_a_twitte.html">this</a>.<br /><br />Now I've got <a href="http://nonstopexpress.tumblr.com/">Tumblr</a>. Let's see how it goes.Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-10182776.post-90060205498056673142007-05-13T12:35:00.000-07:002007-05-13T13:50:38.572-07:00Signs of Movement<a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiwTmQ2eO5MwiQbZ5zGDleH5l71PIbVvzK-95PXpA9l7K4cWtHOln5_0JFlnQjam9EJ_JWFFMnxfGc4mx3VCqyNzofXeUuczgfdBpp-wYzWO0ExmzP5QmVytP5W8HyyjjyTOTMV/s1600-h/Wi-Fi+Bus.jpg"><img style="float:right; margin:0 0 10px 10px;cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiwTmQ2eO5MwiQbZ5zGDleH5l71PIbVvzK-95PXpA9l7K4cWtHOln5_0JFlnQjam9EJ_JWFFMnxfGc4mx3VCqyNzofXeUuczgfdBpp-wYzWO0ExmzP5QmVytP5W8HyyjjyTOTMV/s320/Wi-Fi+Bus.jpg" border="0" alt=""id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5064132513413229218" /></a>I attended the 2007 <a ref="http://www.cdf.org/ed_conf_2007.php">@issue</a> conference a few weeks ago and was treated to an hour of the technology forecaster <a href="http://www.saffo.com">Paul Saffo</a>.<br /><br />Among many interesting things, he urged the audience to look for societal/technological precursors, products or services that point to some greater trend or development. I'm just an amateur observer, and nowhere near Saffo's league or level, but I did find it interesting that my Oakland Transbay bus is now equipped with Wi-Fi.<br /><br />It's a step closer to that omnipresent network, that lifeline we become more dependent on each day. Saffo had an interesting point about this: as soon as a technology reaches a certain level of convenience and availability, we adapt so throroughly that it becomes indispensable. <br /><br />So, it's not a stretch to see the day will come soon when all of us, not just the geek elite, "count on" our commutes to take care of all manner of important business, like paying bills, making reservations and locating our kids via their GPS phones. Goodness, can you imagine? The bus network is down!<br /><br />***********<br /><br /><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi7oHDgEvB-5Oj4889C_2aXq4WRULJBRD90CetpMwimgFW7RwajhGYtcdNlUVi53ejajdCmirByWj08Nvx-SK1fZNjRNTUJ0xjoMpE5mCOyDGx0uuzx8sU-RmLqeAQpzJPD0h_d/s1600-h/Shirt.jpg"><img style="float:right; margin:0 0 10px 10px;cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi7oHDgEvB-5Oj4889C_2aXq4WRULJBRD90CetpMwimgFW7RwajhGYtcdNlUVi53ejajdCmirByWj08Nvx-SK1fZNjRNTUJ0xjoMpE5mCOyDGx0uuzx8sU-RmLqeAQpzJPD0h_d/s320/Shirt.jpg" border="0" alt=""id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5064139608699202226" /></a>The other day a co-worker brought in a shirt she had purchased at Long's. That's not really news, you can buy lots of stuff at that store, but I was struck by the shirt's design--it reminded me of those $125 models you find in trendy boutiques--and how it managed to make its way to a drugstore chain.<br /><br />I read a decent NYT article last week about how stores like Forever 21, Zara and H&M have accelerated the time it takes for a particular design to go from designer to discount store. Those chains can put a piece "inspired" by a big name into malls worldwide in around six weeks. This shirt seemed to be an even more egalitarian example; you can get your Mylanta, nail clippers and designer T in just one trip.<br /><br />So, I wonder how far the high-level designers will get squeezed out of the fashion business, since now people can design their own clothes and retail chains can put new items into the market so quickly. <br /><br />I can see the day when you'll piece together graphic and fit elements online and just send them to a manufacturer/retailer. Or perhaps, like <a href="http://threadless.com/">Threadless</a>, brands will cut out the middleman and just get their stuff directly from the street.<br /><br />I can see some basic analogies with the entertainment industry. Perhaps the Marc Jacobs and Lagerfelds of the world are singing to an ever smaller and smaller audience. Then again, with their uncanny ability to synthesize past and present, and the enormous marketing clout behind them, maybe they'll just go on staying on top. People like status symbols, and they like to have other people do things for them, something I try to remember when thinking about this crazy, customized, DIY world we live in today.Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0