Twist Your Thinking

Three wonderfully telling stories on social media

2012-02-06T06:12:00.000-08:00

I continue to be fascinated by Pinterest and I’m assuming you’ve been swept up in the craze, too (if you‘ve been invited, that is). For once I was a semi-early adopter and it continues to enthrall me.

And apprently, I’m not alone.

Story #1: Pinterest drives more traffic than Google+, YouTube, and LinkedIn combined. Time spent on Pinterest seems to fly by. PG-rated voyeurism is about as addictive as a social media behavior can be. Speaking of which…

Story #2: Social Media is more addictive than tobacco and alcohol. So maybe all those millions of folks hunched over glittering screens isn't so bad after all? If people in this country can spend their time Tweeting instead of smoking and drinking, the optometry industry and Relax The Back stores should soon be experiencing a boon, but Dr. Drew may soon be out of business.

And to further the notion that bad behavior may be a relative term for our technorati, a form of naughty fashion guides…

Story #3: Socks as a form of rebellion in Silicon Valley.

Not much I can say about this one other than, it sure is hard to make fun of goofballs making millions who get a rush from polka dotted socks.

Hold on. I just did.

Join a community, win millions! (or not)

2012-02-01T05:53:00.000-08:00

It’s true that communities can help brands become commercial powerhouses and money-making machines. But it takes investments of time and money. It must be a steady, strategic, nose-to-the-grindstone approach that rarely happens overnight.

Or not.

This is what makes Sodeta, Spain an anomaly. Because every person in that town of 70 households, except one, recently went from poverty to wealth after winning Spain’s famous Christmas Lottery. It's a great story.

Some won millions, and even the least fortunate hauled in $130,000.

Then there’s Costis Mitsotakis.

He was the only person in the village who didn’t buy a ticket. So now he lives as proof that when a community is doing something together, best to jump in while you can before you’re driving your Yugo in a parade behind a bunch of McLarens and Bentleys.

Which won’t happen in Sodeta, where life is now merely filled with more card-playing leisure, and some of the more extravagant purchases have been a patch of land and a sofa. Sounds like this community is going to stay together for some time.

For those who poo-poo Pinterest, take a gander at this

2012-01-30T09:20:00.000-08:00

Is it just my imagination or is Pinterest growing faster than Facebook?

Um...no. In terms of size and growth rate, Pinterest is still smaller than an undersized tick on the back of an old Black Bear. It just may seem that way from all the press coverage and buzz.

Still, Pinterest is flexing it’s digital muscle without even lifting a finger. Mashable shows Pinterest’s ability to be a strong tool to drive traffic to retail websites, through a short article and cool infographics.

When I first played with Pinterest I thought of it nothing more than digital masturbation and an endless time waste. I think I may have said something similar when Facebook first appeared on the scene (“Why would anyone care about what other people are doing right now?) and quite possibly Twitter (“Why would anyone care about what other people are doing right now in only 140 characters or less?).

I’ll never poo-poo another internet sensation. In fact, I’m a believer in Pinterest.

Clearly, it has relevance to commerce.

Being an almost entirely visual medium, it plays globally. And brings a new dimension to PG-rated voyeurism.

And It's proven to be a giant when it comes to community building.

Stop poo-pooing and start Pinning.

JoePa, one more time

2012-01-25T08:30:00.000-08:00

Joe Paterno gets laid to rest today. To acknowledge the complexity of a story about a man whose life was defined by 80 years of amazing accomplishments but clouded by two months of devastating humiliation, I'm re-posting Monday's thoughts on JoePa and the community that has ebbed and flowed in his support since the Sandusky allegations were revealed. Just click here.

JoePa: When a loss is a gain

2012-01-23T04:02:00.000-08:00

In football, there are times when a coach instructs an offensive player—usually the quarterback—to go backwards, that is, take a loss in yardage. The ballcarrier might run through his own end zone to record a safety to protect a large lead while the clock runs out, or run backwards a couple of yards towards the middle of the field to give a kicker a better angle for a field goal.

After 46 years as the Head Coach of Penn State University football team, Joe Paterno knew when it was time to take a loss on the football field. But unfortunately he couldn’t transfer that know-how into real life situations, and ultimately it cost him everything: His job, his dignity, and most likely, his life. Because it’s obvious now that his job was his life. He just couldn’t live without being the coach.

In the months since the horrible allegations against Jerry Sandusky were dug up and then blown up, the dynamics of the community surrounding Coach Paterno and Penn State has ebbed and flowed, starting big and strong but shrinking as more details were revealed. And now, with his death, the community can’t help but grow again.

Even the people who felt anger and disgust for Coach Paterno and his program when the Sandusky story developed, while still repulsed, couldn’t help but feel tremendous sadness for Coach Paterno and the amazing things he accomplished. Not only did he wind up as the all-time leader in coaching wins, bowl appearance and bowl wins, Penn State was time and again rated #1 in graduation rates for their football players.

So now many of the same commentators who skewered Coach Paterno just weeks ago are spending at least a little time admitting that the larger picture paints him as a pretty incredible guy. In light of everything he accomplished, it’s hard to be angry now that he’s gone.

Crowds of his supporters lay flowers and memorabilia at his statue and stare at the bronzed feet of the coach they loved, trying to figure out exactly how they feel about him.

Unfortunately, those people might still be cheering him and he might still be Coach if he realized a long time ago what it took his death to prove: that a community may be strongest when it has something to overcome. It’s a powerful lesson for anyone in the business of building one.

The one thing every brand has to do every day.

2012-01-18T10:38:00.000-08:00

Create Belief.

Chipotle fans have it.

Apple fans have it.

Obama supporters had it in 2008.

Cubs/Packers/Red Wings/etc fans have it.

All great brands have it. It’s the single solitary most powerful reason why people are brand loyal.

And when you have it, you have gold.

Belief why the most loyal supporters are called fans.

Short, of course, for fanatics.

It comes from great service, product design, taste, philosophy. A series of experiences that a person has with a brand that embeds in that person an unwavering belief bordering on love.

That love is so deep, brands could probably slack for a while and still maintain it. But they won that love by never slacking. So it’ll never happen.

Belief is the rock solid foundation of community. It’s as true for every modern religion as it is for Harley Davidson and Four Seasons Hotels.

How do you earn belief? Stay tuned.

Beefy Fan-Antics

2012-01-15T18:10:00.000-08:00

How is fan-dom formed? So many ways.

Some people pass it down in the genes.

Some marry into it.

Some find it along the way.

For any brand with true fans, there’s no one way. My grandpa made me a baseball fan, but he rooted for the Cubs and Sox, and I gravitated to the North side. My son got it from me. I have a nephew who got it by living in Wrigleyville, but we’re all diehard Cubs fans.

Many many many of those diehard Cubs fans gathered over the weekend at the annual Cubs Convention. A larger group of more optimistic yet skeptical fans, you’ll never find.

It was reported in various media sources, cynically by the Chicago Sun-Times, analytically by the New York Times, and respectfully by WGN. None of that was surprising.

These fanatics make me think of another group of fanatics: Chipotle lovers.

Chipotle has done a phenomenal job of creating a brand with a distinct POV and personality, which, combined with good quality, inexpensive food, has created a loyal gathering and, dare I say, a community. Check out the pictures on their Fan-Antics page.

You’ll see pictures of babies in Chipotle gear, brides and grooms feasting on burritos, and those from the elderly set as well. All indications, if you follow the sports model, that Chipotle has truly created a community of loyal devotees.

Somebody tell Theo. Maybe be can get them to sponsor the new scoreboard.

The simple, old school secret behind Pinterest

2012-01-11T04:39:00.000-08:00

Pinterest is white hot. Everyone is Pinterest-ing, covering pinboards with pictures of chicken parmesan, Reese Witherspoon’s hairstyles, and cats kissing rabbits.

Jewelry, home décor, vacation photos…pure fluff, right? Digital masturbation.

Think again. What some would call a massive waste of time was just given $26 million by venture capital firm Andreessen-Horowitz to play with.

But it’s not a fun little site just for playing around. To start with, here are some interesting thoughts on how to use Pinterest for small businesses.

Most important, Pinterest is becoming a great example of a successful self-curating community. So of course, everyone is speculating about the reasons for Pinterest’s massive success. The best combination of clear and complete came from Elad Gil.

But I’ll boil it down even further. Here’s why:

Spirograph, Play-Doh, Silly Putty.

These classic toys are just three examples of how folks enjoyably occupied their time back in the pre-internet days. Doesn’t get much more analog than that, but they were pretty revelatory when they came out.

Ridiculously successful, each one shared three basic qualities:

It’s fun, it’s easy to use, and it looks cool.

So is Pinterest.

Will Pinterest have the same longevity? Only time will tell. But Google, Youtube, and Facebook also share those three qualities, and their futures look pretty good.

Hillary and Ron, sitting in a tree…

2012-01-09T09:38:00.000-08:00

From the world of digital political organizing comes Americans Elect. Their ultimate goal is to get a third option on the ballots for the 2012 Presidential election.

They are not, as it may sound, advocating a third party. Rather, they’re trying to create a second nominating process. “A content-neutral platform for political expression in American politics," according to their Chief Operating Officer.

It’s a wonderful example of a community trying to organize itself, and their timing couldn’t be better, given the current morass known as the Republican primaries, and the dire straits in Washington, where the approval rating, according to former Republican Mike Huckabee, is “just barely above a pedophile.”

Clarence Page, in the Chicago tribune yesterday, opined that a successful Americans Elect effort could lead to a Ron Paul-Hillary Clinton ticket. That might shake things up a bit, don’t you think?

And while many of us wish the dissension and rancor could just go away, and this would be a beautiful way to start turning things upside down in US politics, the best thing about Americans Elect is what’s best about all communities that organize from within: they are created, motivated, and guided by the people, and they do the peoples’ will.

Could there be anything more American?

The curious case of kickers and communities

2012-01-03T06:52:00.001-08:00

Do you like to cook? What if you cooked your whole life and finally made it onto Top Chef Masters. But instead of getting to cook with all your fellow chefs, you have to stand off to the side while your mates whip up their crispy bacon-roasted quail with cornbread-chorizo stuffing-type dishes and finally, a few seconds before the show’s over, you’re asked to come in and make a dessert that decides the entire competition. While 90,000 foodies scream at you.

Do you fancy politics? Imagine you’re a Presidential advisor who’s forced to watch a three-hour debate from the wings (which sounds bad enough) and at the end comes in to make a statement for your candidate that determines whether your side emerges victorious. Oh, there are 87,000 political fanatics there, from both sides of the aisle. Screaming, of course.

Things like that happened all over the country yesterday, on the football field, where those curious creatures called placekickers were trusted to resolve what 3-4 hours of relentless hand-to-hand combat couldn’t. In game after game, the outcome of the contest was placed on the feet of the kicker, who, as usual, was left alone on the sidelines, except for tv cameras in his face, until his moment of truth.

Why don’t people hang out with him as he’s contemplating the final kick? Why do they make him feel like a condemned prisoner instead of a trusted teammate? I don’t get it.

The best kind of coaching helps an athlete--professional, corporate, or otherwise—be completely comfortable in any situation by talking to her, giving him distractions, forcing her to be able to complete the task while pressure swirls. Create a community, put that person in the middle, and let the chips fall as a team.

If I were on any of those teams yesterday, I would’ve chatted up the kicker for the entire time he was waiting for his shot, distracting him from the situation and allowing him to forget about everything except for the one thing he knows how to do exceptionally well.

That’s what a community can do.

The first awesome top ten list of 2012

2012-01-01T12:36:00.000-08:00

Top ten things that have probably happened so far in 2012

1. Seth Godin wrote a bestselling book and it’s already been translated into 12 languages
2. Jay Cutler looked at the scoreboard in Minnesota and thought “How much longer?!?!?”
3. Mitt Romney ate a piece of pie and and thought “How much longer?!?!?”
4. Someone went to see Sherlock Holmes (but not many)
5. Someone showed up at the Health Club who hasn’t been there for 5 months
6. People mourned a Chimpanzee
7. I broke a resolution
8. Someone Googled “Hangover Cure.”
9. Lady Gaga watched Evita, Dick Tracy, and Desperately Seeking Susan to try to get some new ideas
10. 248 people are not sure sure if getting engaged last night was such a good idea now that its light out and the band isn't playing "Wonderful Tonight."

Happy New Year and hope you get put on a lot of (good) lists in 2012

Let’s hear it for Winter’s warmth

2012-01-01T11:15:00.000-08:00

Yup, you heard me right.

Sure, the snow and cold and sometimes cruelly raging winter winds can make tears freeze and cheeks crack.

But it also makes you more appreciative of a warm fire. The warming house for ice skaters. Seat warmers in your car, hand warmers for winter dog walks.

And warm people.

Is it my imagination, or are people just a little bit warmer in the winter? A little more likely to help someone carry groceries, shovel snow, give you a warm bagel instead of an old one at New York Bagels and Bialy (the only place for great bagels in Chicago).

Hot toddies and hot chocolate are nice, but warm people are even better. Because warm people are more likely to come together. And any time people come together, something good can happen. A great idea. A solution to a tough challenge. The inkling of a community.

Let’s hear it for Winter’s cold. Without it, we wouldn’t have Winter’s warmth.

The Grinch who built a community

2011-12-22T14:52:00.000-08:00

When I was (reluctantly) at the mall yesterday, I was reminded of the tremendous potential for brand building during the holidays.

Not shopping, not buying things.

Brand building.

By creating communities.

With all of the giving and cheer, when people are at their best and most in the mood to spread good tidings, think about the tremendous opportunity to build communities of people who are passionate about the same thing.

Apple comes closest, for all the obvious reasons. The atmosphere in their store is kind of like a big party that everyone cool and nice is invited to. All of the people in there have something in common, whether you can put your finger on it or not.

Can’t say many other stores/brands have it right. But think of the community-building opportunities, all over the mall. A massive captive audience filled with the spirit of the season and theoretically, willing to take the time to address how they feel about their most (or least) favorite brands.

Even the guy in the SUV who blew off a stop sign and gave me the finger as he raced off at 40 mph. That’s a disgruntled patron with valuable input. What if the mall planners could ask him how they could improve the parking and throughways during the holiday? And what if he had suggestions, and the planners adapted per his suggestions? Think of the good faith that would engender and the allegiance that could be created.

If only someone asked the Grinch why he hated Christmas so much. So much heartache could’ve been avoided, so much Whoville brand building and community planning could’ve been achieved.

How to create a community of spies

2011-12-19T15:08:00.000-08:00

There are more end-of-year lists than mattress sales this time of year. Ridicule them if you will, but they’re great ways to find good reading, stupid videos, cool design…pretty much the best of anything you’d ever want to experience.

You could probably just live in a cage from January through Thanksgiving, wake up and spend a few solid days online, and find the bestest stuff of the year.

Here’s one list on design that’s mindless and fun. I especially like the Rollercoaster designed to kill you and the USB drives hidden around NYC to connect people into a little spy network, the former because it’s wickedly smart and the latter because it’s another ingenius way to build a community.

Try something new for $20

2011-12-12T09:12:00.000-08:00

Does this sound like a good thing? I suppose it depends on if you’re in a back alley in Thailand or at Alinea. The latter could give you gastric pleasure beyond compare and the former…well…there may be pleasure involved, but also some antibiotics shortly thereafter.

When it comes to Dabble, though, it’s a great idea.

For $20 a pop, you can spend a couple of hours learning about something you’ve always wanted to learn about. Like fencing. Or beer brewing, venture capital, and tomorrow, how to plan a stress-free dinner party, just in time for the holidays.

Low commitment, high potential. An ingenius way to be part of a temporary mini-community and learn something new while you’re at it. No wonder it’s spreading.

It’s like a smaller cooler Learning Annex. And what it seems to be building, that Learning Annex is too big to drum up, is a “buy local” type of community. As someone who prefers Filter and Star Lounge over Starbucks and Caribou, I’m all for it.

Pay attention to the B-side of life

2011-12-09T08:36:00.000-08:00

When you have to listen to an entire album, you're forced to hear songs you would otherwise never have heard. You can pay attention to certain harmonies, or notice background vocals, or the way the instruments were arranged. You might catch some weird sound effect that's mixed in.

Paying attention to input in this way is surprise-fueled potential. Inspiration. A way to get to discovery. Which of course is the way to get to fresh ideas.

When you choose what you see or hear or do, rather than letting it happen, the opportunity for surprise decreases just a little bit. Since you know what you’ll be getting, the chances of a happy accident go down.

But what about the TV remote control? Can the generation before mine say the same thing about the way I learned to channel surf, therefore bypassing what could have been unlimited unplanned viewings? Sure.

Do I think I’m any less creative or inspired because I mastered the remote? Not really.

But just remember, Playlist Generation, as your appetite for control grows greater and you pick and choose with every decision: don't forget to pay attention to the B-side of life. It's the key that opens the door to discovery.

Does choice trump Discovery?

2011-12-08T13:37:00.000-08:00

So have you heard about the Playlist Generation?
These are the folks who only know listening to music on ipods and mp3 players.
They don’t look at 78 rpm albums as a way of listening to music. They see them as cute scratchy relics that DJ’s use at concerts or shows.
Back in the day of albums, if you wanted to buy a song, you had to buy the whole album. Warps, scratches and all. You couldn’t just buy the one song.
The Playlist Generation gets to buy (or more likely, steal) that one song they’ve got to have.
Playlists are awesome.
But like many time-shortening devices, they may hamper Discovery.
And that’s too bad. Because discovery is the fount of new ideas.
A playlist to today’s teenager is kind of like a remote control for teenagers when I was one. A way of skipping over all of the options you don’t want and choosing only the one(s) you love, be it music or tv stations.
Each preceding generation decries the lazy-fication of our youth. Not having to stand up to change the damn channel. Not having to patiently (and sometimes painfully) listen to each song on the album just to get to the one really good single.
The similarity is, in each case, discovery is affected.
Tune in tomorrow to see why.

Water in a Box

2011-12-06T09:26:00.001-08:00

Before we continue our conversation about Discovery, an interlude about the importance of follow-through.

I’d bet lots and lots of people have thought of ways to sell water in something other than a landfill-filling plastic bottle.

So why haven’t the huge corporate monoliths brought an alternate to market? And why has a small ecologically responsible company beaten them to it?

Your guess is as good as mine, but I’d bet it has something to do with that annoying little thing called profit.

Too bad, because this is a phenomenal idea with wonderful design. And not only did they discover it, they made it happen. They brought it to life. So please find some and buy some, and be inspired by a great idea executed really well.

And PS, it’s delicious.

Discovery is the action that creates moments of newness

2011-12-05T08:25:00.000-08:00

Discovery has been around as long as people have been around. Whatever you consider to be the beginning of human civilization—Adam and Eve, Cavemen, Led Zeppelin, fresh pasta—the great ideas of the time were sparked by a moment of discovery.

Doing the naughty when you're not supposed to is an idea; finding fruit on The Tree of Knowledge was a Discovery.

Light bulbs are an idea; the controlled movement of charged particles like protons, electrons and ions was a discovery.

Discovery is the action that creates moments of newness.

Is it any different now? Absolutely not. Ideas are democratic. Discovery is unique and is the key to getting to fresh ideas.

The more intriguing question is, does the act of discovery change over time? Will our kids and grandkids experience discovery the same way our ancestors did?

The answer is, much like most questions comparing digital natives to their forebearers, yes and no.

The difference can best be articulated by the way people listen to music now vs. the way I listened to music as a teenager.

If you’re curious to hear how, check back on Wednesday.

There’s a reason they didn’t name it the Space Shuttle “Ideation”

2011-12-02T09:07:00.000-08:00

Let’s talk about Discovery.
Discovery is an action. That goose-bumpy spine tingly activity that sparks the creation of the germ that becomes a great idea.
People love talking about the moment they come up with a great idea. That moment of inspiration. But “come up with” and “inspiration” are passive words.
Discovery is an active word. Synapses are firing, adrenaline is flowing.
Discover Dis • cov • er(diss kuvver): be first to learn or find something. (v)
A verb.
The actual moment of “Aha!”
“Idea” is not, sayeth the dictionary, a verb. Only recently has the world begun turning it into a verb. Ideating and Ideation are sexier ways of talking about what Alex Osborn simply and clearly coined “brainstorming” back in the Mad Men days. Now it’s a way to sound smarter and charge more money to facilitate it.
I’m fine with making conjugations of “idea” into different parts of language as long as we all acknowledge that there’s no new ideas without discovery.
Lots of ideas, to be sure, and lots of creativity, but without discovery, forget about fresh thinking. Which is all well and good for people who can get by with warmed over ideas that generate mediocre excitement and flat sales.
But smart cool profitable ideas? How do you get one of those?
Look for part 2, coming early next week.

I’d rather Bing with the sinners than Google with the saints

2011-11-29T08:05:00.000-08:00

If you’ve ever thought that Google (or Bing, in my case) is used for the simple pleasures of locating, researching, or buying a product and service, connecting to old friends or finding new ones, finding love, music, art, directions, a restaurant, sheet music, etc… you’re right. If you Google.

It's not so much of an innocent act, apparently, if you Bing.

Take a look at the upper screen shot that shows the results of a very simple search I did on Google about how long ago I started on Twitter. It shows what Google thought were the most likely places I wanted to go after typing in just the first couple of words. I could be mistaken, but it looks like a lot of long-distance-running farmers had been Googling recently.

Then take a look at the lower screen shot that was the result of the same exercise on Bing. Don’t look now, but apparently, the guys and gals who’ve been Binging have been up to some not so down-on-the-farm types of activities. That, or it’s a whole lot of professional athletes who are facing random drug testing…

Kevin Bacon's not gonna be happy about this

2011-11-22T12:03:00.000-08:00

You shouldn’t be surprised to know that there’s significantly fewer than 6 degrees of separation between you and anyone else on the planet.

These findings come from a new study by scientists from Facebook and the University of Milan. Before you poo-poo it because it was sponsored by 2011’s version of Big Brother, consider that the cohort for the study was 721 million people. Facebook users, yes, but also a full 10% of the world’s populations. Zoinks.

Also not surprising that this ever-increasing shrinkage of the world is being driven in part by the digital world in which we all live. I think for the first time in my life, I can say “Duh!” to something I read in the New York Times: “The research underscores the growing power of the emerging science of social networks.” Wow. I think Lolcats could’ve figured that one out.

For all you social media naysayers who would argue that “friends” takes on relative meaning since it’s likely that you really know a very small percentage of your Facebook friends, please take one stupendously big step forward and join us in the 21st century. As Cornell computer science professorJon Kleinberg says in the article, “It’s the weak ties that make the world small.”

What a great articulation of how social media is bringing people together. Someday we’ be playing three degrees of Kevin Bacon. The only question is how soon, and how much more you’ll have to imbibe if you’re playing the drinking game version.

And PS, a shout-out to Mr. Bacon himself, who I heard speak very impressively and entertainingly at TEDx Midwest about SixDegrees, the charitable organization he's created and maintained.

Miracles are always sweet

2011-11-18T12:27:00.000-08:00

99.9% of the time, when something seems too good to be true, it is.

The Miracle Berry seems like it’s the other 0.1%.

I first heard of Miracle Berry from Homaru Cantu, the mind-bending chef of Moto restaurant, a temple of molecular gastronomy in Chicago. He spoke at Chicago Ideas Week about a berry that could make sour things taste sweet. He also talked about a lot of pretty fantastic stuff that night, including menus you can eat. So I figured it was boastful hyperbole and I forgot about it.

But it made me curious.

As I read more and more about it, I got more and more fascinated by a product that can do a whole lot more than make lemons taste very un-lemony. For example, Miracle berries have been given to cancer patients in a Florida hospital whose tate buds have been dulled by chemo. It helps them eat more and prevent weight loss.

Does this feel like a wonder drug to you? Why then do you think the the FDA won’t approve it?

One rumor has it that the sugar companies made it go away in the ‘70’s.

Conspiracy theories aside, it does seem to be legit, and it does warrant more than a head scratching. Miracles are always sweet, and this one's no different. Read up about it and social media-ize it with a few friends. Let’s build a community around the Miracle Berry and see if we can’t get it into more people’s mouths.

Vanilla. Camouflage. Wallpaper. Plain toast.

2011-11-17T07:48:00.000-08:00

Do you want to be any of those things?

Didn’t think so.

I can think of a lot of brands (and people) that would enjoy inhabiting that world. They abhor the idea of unwelcome attention. They’re plugging along, calmly and safely, thinking of all the things that could wrong if they took a misstep, luxuriating in the warmth that is complacency, misguided as it might be.

Problem is, they’re at risk of fading into the background, never to be heard from (or purchased) again.

Brands should want attention, welcome or otherwise. It’s what gets people to notice and be interested, and once you have that, you have the possibility of connection. Once you have connection, you can work your way up to loyalty. And that’s the shizz.

Speaking of connection, a new ad campaign from Benetton is getting a lot of attention, good and bad, for connecting people a little too closely. They‘ve even had to pull one of them.

Benetton has a history of provocative ads that usually have nothing to do with the product, but everything to do with their philosophy of unity. Bing or Google Benetton and look how much press they’re getting. For a fashion brand, buzz is everything, and Benetton will never be vanilla. More like Amarena black cherry swirl.

And ps, those are some sick photoshop skills!

Look up before it’s too late

2011-11-14T08:37:00.000-08:00

I know a “book” is a relative concept. You can read a “book” on a Kindle or an ipad. You can “turn” “pages.”

I’m not going to go old man crazy on you and tell you how reading devices are ruining reading. Because that would be an understatement.

What they’re really doing is ruining human communication.

Actually, the reading device conundrum is part of a bigger digital dilemma. At the epicenter is texting, and according to Sherry Turkle, who spoke at the Chicago Humanities Festival over the weekend, its affect on the increasing deterioration of actual human interaction. She has a new book on the subject. The NYT liked it.

It’s unsettling when you see people texting during a funeral, or families who sit at the same dinner table staring at their own screens. Nauseating, even. For many reasons which she articulates. And I’ll add one more:

The future revolves around forming communities. Bringing people together to connect and think and create and solve. It’s what Twist lives for and does every day. Because you have nothing if you don’t have community. And while there may be plenty of communities online, you can’t do anything if you don’t look up and talk to one another.

So let’s use technology to create communication, not break it down. I double dog dare you to take a walk with a friend and leave your blackberry/iphone etc behind. You can meet him on eharmony, or talk with her about a book you e-read. Start online if you must. But eventually, just go on a walk. Talk, connect, discuss, develop.

And look up. You never know what might be up there.

The most audacious rapper in the world

2011-11-09T08:23:00.000-08:00

You can have Jay-Z, Kanye, Tupac, Biggie, and both M and M. To me the greatest wrapper in history is a 76-year old Bulgarian.

He’s wrapped the Reichstag, the Pont Neuf, and islands in Florida; he’s erected gates in Central Park, and umbrellas in Japan and California.

Next up is Southern Colorado, where Christo is getting closer to approval to Over The River, where he’ll suspend almost six miles of giant panels above a 42-mile stretch of the Arkansas River.

As usual, he has to go through countless rounds of talks with various governmental agencies to get approval, and he’ll finance the project with his money, earned through sales of his work. But he’ll get there. He’s smart and he’s persistent.

His life long partner and collaborator, wife jean Claude, died in 2009. They were fated to be together, having been born on the same day.

I’ve been a huge fan for a long time, and volunteered to help build the umbrellas in California. I was turned down, not by a form letter, but by a personalized letter from Jean-Claude, sent in an envelope stuffed with postcards of Christo’s work.

Admirers cite different reasons for loving the work. For me, it’s the pure audaciousness of the projects. Big, beautiful, and impossible not to notice. As simple as child’s drawings, yet so complicated, and so amazingly, incredibly original.

Check out Over The River. See the gift a truly audacious artist can give.

Serpentine, Shel!!!! Serpentine!!!

2011-11-07T08:00:00.000-08:00

If you ever saw (the original) In-Laws with Peter Falk and Alan Arkin, you’re smiling now. One of the funniest scenes in a movie, ever.

Why is a direct path boring but going back and forth is fun? What makes hairpin turns and Silly Straws so much fun? Why is a kickoff return with seventeen laterals more entertaining than a straight-up-the-field return?

And don’t even get me started on body shapes.

Even making a curvy motion with your finger in the air is more fun than making a straight line. Go ahead, try it. Do it with a flourish. Pretend like you’re conducting a symphony. Lassooing a cow. Cracking a whip. Yee-ha.

And in the case of this spoon, curvy is highly functional, too. It’s the best kind of curvy. I found it at Argo Tea; you hang your spoon on the lip of your cup so you can store it between stirs without getting your saucer all wet and coffee-y.

Poo-poo it if you must but for hot beverage drinkers who like to stay dry this is a very happy spoon. And it's got a curve in it, so that makes it more fun right there. I'll take a dozen.

Can I get your digits?

2011-11-03T07:54:00.000-07:00

No surprise, but the population growth of our great planet is growing. Within that fact, there’s good news and bad news.

The bad news: We’ve picked up speed, doubling to seven billion over the past fifty years. Resources are stretched. The poor get poorer.

The good news: More people means more cool ideas, more possibilities to put your head together with your universal brothers and sisters, more opportunities to find ways to work together to think up something smart, productive, profitable, beneficial, and fun. Solve the growing problems with even bigger ideas.

See where you stand in the chronological order of the world, and take pride in your digits. Then get together with someone and get thinking.

Gives new meaning to giving someone your number.

Read it and don’t weep. I dare you.

2011-11-02T07:52:00.000-07:00

The best writing makes your heart skip a beat. It projects a movie in front of your eyes filled with images that compels your brain to consider them undeniably real.

The best writing comes from a place where otherworldly feelings live comfortably. Where once in a while, you have to close your eyes in the middle of a sentence to be able to fully digest and appreciate it. The best writing can make you cry from joy. And from sadness.

Ultimately the best writing comes from deep within the heart, where experience has been synthesized into love. And that’s certainly true of Mona Simpson’s eulogy for her brother Steve Jobs.

If someone were ever to send me something and say “Read it and weep,” this would be it.

Hot Math

2011-10-28T11:57:00.000-07:00

Heard the other day that a couple of geniuses have calculated the number Pi to 10 trllion digits. It took Shigeru Kondo and Alexander Yee over a year and burned out many a hard drive. The room in which they were working heated up to over 104˚ as they worked.

It sounds a little like an experiment Willie Wonka would do with Stephen Hawking if they got together and did way too much cocaine and Mt. Dew. I have no idea if any if this is true because I wouldn’t know how to compute Pi past the nine digits on my calculator.

I don’t really understand the value in doing it. But I’d bet Shigeru and Alexander wouldn’t see the value in watching old West Wing reruns. I’d watch ten trillion of those if I could find a way to compress time. Maybe Shig and Alex could help me with that…?

Truthfully, I’m awed by their accomplishment, and I can only imagine the creative thinking they had to employ to solve the challenge and get to the ten-trillionth digit. And I can only wonder how strong they must be to be able to carry around such big calculators.

You’re crazy if you don’t like these songs

2011-10-26T08:13:00.001-07:00

From the department of this-may-or-may-not-be-true because I heard it from a rock star, there have been more hit singles of a song called “Crazy” than any other song title.

This from either Will Champion or Chris Martin of Coldplay (couldn’t tell which one) in an interview on NPR on Sunday.

From Patsy Cline through Seal and Gnarls Barkley, decades of music lovers have heard creative artists posit and wonder around ways of being Crazy.

Why is this? I think off-the-charts right brained creative thinkers and doers do everything in the extreme, and they need extreme words to capture what they really feel.

Plus, it just wouldn’t be as interesting if Patsy was Stupid for loving you, or if Seal wasn’t going to survive unless he got a little Wacky.

Sliding into the Hall of Fame

2011-10-24T07:52:00.000-07:00

You’ve got something people care about when you can create a Hall of Fame for it. All the major sports have one. So does Rock and Roll. And don’t forget Polka and Gospel Music. Astronauts, TV, Insurance, they all got ‘em.

Which would lead some to counter that anyone can put up four walls—or a web site—and salute something they love. And this is true. But if you build it, either digitally or physically, and people come, then it’s probably a good thing that you built it.

Hence, I love the White Castle Hall of Fame, which just announced their most recent inductees, including Constance Huening, a 90-year old who’s been eating Sliders since the 1920’s. If you think it’s easy to get in, consider this:

Since the Hall opened in 2001, from almost 8000 applications, they’ve inducted 80 people. Insert punch line here asking how many of them are still alive…

I’d bet most of them are like Constance Huening, eating a slider on every birthday. Unheralded heroes among the real people of this country. It takes a special kind of person (and a special kind of stomach) to get there.

It also takes a special kind of creative thinking to be a relatively hip and current brand after 90 years in business. Kudos to White Castle for sliding along for decades with basically the same product, and coming up with new ways to stay relevant and intriguing.

Think Galactically

2011-10-19T12:06:00.000-07:00

Over the years, Richard Branson has been a poster boy for off-the-charts right brain thinking. His stunts are legendary, including his trip down 5th Avenue in a tank—and a cannon shot at the Coke sign--to announce Virgin Cola’s arrival in the US. With Steve Jobs’ passing he may be one of the most prominent visionary creative thinkers left standing.

And he sure does offer fun things to do and buy. The latest, launching from the (publicly funded!) first commercial spaceport, is a ticket for one of the first space flights on Virgin Galactic, if you have $200,000 burning a hole in your pocket. I’m tempted to pony up just for the experience, damn the cash flow reorganization required. Astronauts smacked golf balls off the moon 30 years ago. I'd like to try knocking one into the cup with a 9 iron from 100 feet out.

Not to mention, pioneering opportunities don't come around every day.

We can all learn a lot from a crazy right brain thinker like Sir Richard. He sets the creative thinking bar insanely high and challenges us to think not just big, but galactically.

Occupy something more positive

2011-10-18T04:56:00.000-07:00

I'm mad as hell and I could see myself Occupying something other than my desk chair or that one really good seat at Starbucks with the good view, away from the door but close enough to people-watch.

And I understand the way anger builds up, and I get why thousands of people have joined the Occupy movement.

But I would suggest one thing:

Occupy something a little more positive.

Last week at TEDxMidwest, I heard Bill Strickland talk. Fairly quiet, somewhat unassuming, intensely passionate guy. Read about him, see if you can help his cause, but more than anything else, be inspired by his story and the stories he's helped thousands of other people successfully tell. Then see if you might feel like Occupying something more positive.

Generosity = confidence

2011-10-12T20:20:00.000-07:00

A very wise, very good friend told me that many years ago. It stuck with me and I passed it on to many others because it’s wonderfully pithy and powerfully true.

When you give something away, people don’t just see you as likeable, they see you as confident.

So I was blown away by these five very confident people who served on a panel at Chicago Ideas Week, at Twist’s event titled “The Economy’s Effect on Creativity,” and gave away a lifetime’s worth of great advice for creative thinkers in the span of 6o minutes:

Tara Heibel, Founder and Owner of Sprout Home

John Timmons, former Director at Sears Holdings and Social Media Consultant

Sherman Wright, Co-Founder and Co-managing Partner of CommonGround

Catherine Hudon, Digital Producer and owner of Online Clothing line Shorty

Kathleen Luttschyn, Owner of the new maternity blog Style Nine and blogger for Apartment Therapy

Thanks to all five panelists, to all of the people who filled the room at Twist’s session, and to Tribeca Flashpoint Academy, an amazing institution in the heart of Chicago that is filled with ambitious designers of the artistic future.

Here’s to giving great stuff away and the supremely smart and confident people who do it.

Finding creativity in simplicity

2011-10-05T14:45:00.000-07:00

The Postal Service is the the nation’s second-largest civilian employer, with 574,000 employees. Who’s #1?

Why, it’s that little company in Bentonville, Arkansas.

What does this mean? It confirms that when it comes to the way we shop, the vast majority of Americans like ‘em big. We want lots and lots and lots of choices; nothing very fancy; please make it friendly, thank you very much; and of course, make it as cheap as possible. But I suppose that’s pretty global.

Not a real complicated formula and I don’t think Sam Walton would argue. Sometimes ideas are great because they strip everything out and become wonderfully beautifully simple. I don't think he'd argue with that either.

PS, please check out Twist's event at Chicago Ideas Week next Tues 10.11. Space is limited and filling up.

Where do you get it from?

2011-10-03T08:55:00.000-07:00

You go to the opera and while you’re listening to Tosca you figure out how to solve a 3-4 defense that has kept you out of the end zone.

You listen to a song by an artist you’ve never heard of and pluck out a few words that help you find the right phrase for the legal brief you’ve been struggling with.

You “Sit on the terlet.” (thank you, Uncle Sol.)

Creativity can strike anywhere. For me, it’s totally unpredictable. Matt Lauer asks a question in a way that makes me rethink how I get information.

I hear an Adele song with lyrics that speak to me.

“Throw your soul through every open door
Count your blessings to find what you look for.”

Most often, I think people find inspiration in counterintuitive places. It’s kind of like finding love. Don’t look for it. It’ll find you.

Although going to Chicago Ideas Week sure could help, especially this cool discussion on how the economy has affected creativity.

Who needs socks when you can have cupcakes?

2011-09-30T12:56:00.000-07:00

Human instinct is to want stuff, whether it’s stuff you should have or not. We can only hold back for so long. It’s why diets don’t last and professional baseball players who go to jail get to come back to professional baseball. People like to eat yummy treats and general managers like to win games. So red velvet cupcakes and $5 milion pitchers with 5.00 ERA’s re-enter the equation.

This was further confirmed in last Friday’s NYT article that lays out the thinking behind people who are back to buying fun stuff at a faster clip than the necessary stuff. As the founder of Junior’s Cheesecake in Brooklyn so articulately summed it up, “People want to get back to living — it’s become a more adjusted normal.” Water always finds it’s own level, and humans find theirs.

My only fear is that the level they like isn’t one they can afford. My wish for them: Think creatively. When the stuff you want is unhealthy, unaffordable, or just doesn’t seem like a good idea, think about what could replace it, or what you could do instead; maybe find a different place to shop or eat, put on a pair of pants that you always ignored, or try combining two foods in one dish that might normally make you gag. Rumor has it that’s how Grant Achatz got his start.

You can’t always get what you crave. But if you think creatively some time, you’ll find, you’ll get what you need...

Speaking of which, have you checked out the schedule at Chicago Ideas Week? You might find an event on Tues 10/11 that's especially interesting.

A great example of how NOT to use creative thinking to get to a great idea.

2011-09-29T06:12:00.001-07:00

I love/hate this picture.

No wonder our esteemed leaders are gridlocked. Everyone has ideas on how to unlock them. Here’s a first step: Eliminate 85% of the people in the room; rock paper scissors, Simon Says, whatever works. Get fewer voices in the conversation.

The key to a great ideation is to get the right people in the room. Dear Washington: Try this.

Chicago Ideas Week is only 10 days away. Pls check out a very cool discussion on where creativity fits in to this new economy.

Good writing is good. Being different is better.

2011-09-28T07:05:00.000-07:00

What’s better than when someone creates a piece of communication that respects the target’s intelligence? Well, Free Pie Wednesdays at Baker’s Square, for one. But gratis Coconut Cream aside, I love websites and tv shows and tweets that don’t treat people like herds of lowest common denominators. Explains why I love Aaron Sorkin, he of The American President, West Wing, Sports Night, and The Social Network. And being a writer, I love his work because the dialogue is spectacular. Rapid fire, biting, human.

That said, I still like watching shows like Wipeout, which succeed for the same reason Larry Moe and Curly are in the comedy Hall of Fame. Sometimes you just don’t need words.

This is not true, though, if you believe London MarketingWeek’s article about long copy ads making a comeback. On the surface, it’s a win for writers who like to flex their linguistic muscles. But as the article makes clear, it’s more about zigging when others are not zigging. With the years-long dearth of long copy ads, the agency was trying something different, going an unfamiliar way to engage consumers.

While an interesting trend, this is not about the number of words, or even about what they say, although Aaron Sorkin might diagree. This, as is often the case when you want to create breakthrough ideas, is just about thinking differently.

Shameless reminder: Don't miss Chicago Ideas Week and Twist's timely and intriguing panel discussion.

Chicago Ideas Week is coming

2011-09-26T06:14:00.000-07:00

Something magical always happens when diverse creative thinkers come together.

Ancient Maya, the Algonquin Roundtable, the Big Lebowski conventions, the NFL owners meetings…well, the NFL may disprove the theory a bit, but maybe you need to make sure you’re assembling the right people.

Next October 10-16, the right people will indeed be gathering together right here in our backyard, to create an ecosystem of innovation, exploration, and intellectual recreation. Chicago Ideas Week consists of dozens of intriguing events and over 100 speakers spread out across the city. Amazing creative thinkers representing art, architecture, culinary arts, sports, and much much more (no NFL owners allowed).

Check it out, make a plan, be inspired.

Just because you didn’t get a Genius Grant doesn’t mean you’re not a genius

2011-09-20T14:02:00.000-07:00

22 people were awarded MacArthur Foundation "Genius Grants", the no-strings-attached, half a million buck fellowships to spend however they want. The winners were doing all kinds of mediocre things like leading children’s choirs, fighting for elder rights, figuring out how to prevent sports concussions, yadda yadda yadda.

What would I do if I got a MacArthur Genius grant?

Pay Alfonso Soriano for four innings.
Buy a five second ad on the Super Bowl.
Fill my cart all the way to the top at Whole Foods.
Give ipads to all of the needy children in the New Trier school system.
Extend our Cooking Light subscription for 41,667 years
Buy a massive amount of gnocchi and anitpasti from Piccolo Sogno and several ridiculously expensive Barolos and slowly consume it all over a two to three week period

So I guess it would pretty much be wasted on me.

But seriously, if I received a large amount of for-good money...? I would use it to convince every person in the world that they have many creative bones in their body, even if they say they have none. I would design incredibly thought provoking and compelling mechanisms and buy the necessary materials to build them on a massive scale. And we would work (and play) together until they were regularly using the creative side of their brains to figure stuff out and solve tough challenges. And I would then hope to get many many thank-you notes.

What would you do?

Renegade inspiration

2011-09-12T06:51:00.000-07:00

Bracelets made out of old bicycle tires. “WTFWJD” bumper stickers. Musical hair. Old books with the middle carved out, the way you’d sneak a gun into a jail, but with the shape of an iphone carved into it to create a clever storage and carrying device for your iPhone.

These were few of the many wonderfully innovative items being displayed and sold at the Renegade Craft Fair on Division Street over the weekend. Renegade is based in Chicago and is also held "in urban epicenters of creative indie-entrepreneurship."

In Chicago, the entire fair is only a few blocks long but the vast amount of creative thinking they cram into several dozen small booths would put most other fairs to shame.

The items for sale go from playful to profane, beautifully crafted to simple but ingenious. And many just plain fun and smile-inducing, like the bookmarks made out of old book spines.

Beyond the items, the way they’re displayed and the way the booths are set-up are also given thought and made to feel different and a little special. Not your standard art-fair-in-a-mall exhibition.

If you’re even the slightest bit interested in being inspired, put it on your calendar now for next September. See how people are conjuring up fantastic things from old skateboards, books, bicycle parts. Putting the right sides of their brains to work and having a pretty gosh darn good time.

And if you want to feed your physical curiosity, try the brown rice sliders from Mana food bar. Tasty!

You can't always want what you get

2011-09-08T06:53:00.000-07:00

I saw this blurb in my weekly Accounts on the Move email:

“SECRET WEAPON MARKETING WINS 1-800-DENTIST
Secret Weapon Marketing, the agency that handles only three clients at a time, filled the final slot in its three client roster with 1-800-DENTIST. Creative duties were previously handled in-house.”

I love Jerry McGuire, so I must love Secret Weapon.

I don’t know anyone there, although I’ve admired a lot of the Jack in the Box commercials over the years, all of them directed by Dick Sittig, the agency's founder and Creative Director.

Skeptics will scoff at their three-clients-only policy as a gimmick, or an excuse, or just a plain old money loser.

I say it’s genius. For one, it’s a great way to save time and money doing countless RFPs, which greatly increases employee's mental happiness. It allows them to focus on the business at hand, building client relationships, doing great work, and, heaven forbid, enjoying the work they do.

Plus, I would argue that it makes the agency more attractive to clients, regardless of how many clients SW takes. Every schoolboy who’s ever had a crush knows that some folks only want what they can’t have (at least that's how I explain my high school dating drought). For once, it’s the clients who should be nervous, with the possibility that they could lose their agency if another client comes along and steals them away.

And of course, it’s a different way of thinking about doing business. It changes the model. It’s twisted, and I love that.

One of my favorite quotes in one of my favorite movies is about the time and dedication that it takes to truly do a great job on behalf of another, and it can’t be underestimated. Secret Weapon understands this.

I just hope they're really really good at negotiating their fees.

Smell the book (or not)

2011-09-02T05:41:00.000-07:00

Close your eyes and imagine you’re holding a book in your hands. What does it feel like? Smell like? Does it have years of dog-ears, coffee stains, worn edges? Now open it up. Are there annotations in the margins? Notes inside the front and back covers with phone numbers and lunch dates ?

If so, you’re crazy.

Books don’t look or feel anything like that, and they certainly don’t smell. That is, until someone creates a scratch n sniff app.

Well, ok, that might be a few years off, and I suppose some crazy antique book dealer in an alley in Evanston will make sure there will always be those things with pages that you turn and smell kind of dusty.

But as you well know, the digital book revolution is in full swing, and the latest reminder comes from Gregg and Evan Spiridellis, the guys who brought us JibJab. They have a new line of children’s books sold only on the ipad that allow you to customize a book and make yourself the star of the story.

This is what Gregg Spiridelli says about their new product:

"We see a huge opportunity to disrupt children's publishing and reinvent storytelling with new devices."

I love that. As much as I love the tactile experience of turning pages, I also love what the bros are doing. It’s smart and creative and makes reading more appealing for kids. It’s medicine inside a cupcake.

And if you’re wondering what the effect of tablet computers are on how kids are learning to read, according to USA Today, 47 of the top 50 iTunes book apps are kids’ titles.

Put that in your book and mark it.

Why small town papers are (sometimes) better than the NYT

2011-08-31T07:42:00.000-07:00

These were three headlines in Sunday’s New York Times daily email:

"Challenges in Predicting the Intensity of Storms
By HENRY FOUNTAIN
Forecasting is far better at estimating where a storm will go than its intensity, since it can be very difficult to get information from the heart of a hurricane.

With Katrina in Mind, Obama Administration Says It's Ready for Irene
By ERIC LIPTON
The Obama administration made a public display Saturday of the range of its efforts to make sure state and local officials had whatever help they needed to prepare for Hurricane Irene.

New Friends Fight Off Cabin Fever at a Hotel Turned Shelter
By KIM SEVERSON
A community born of disaster formed among people riding out Hurricane Irene in Swansboro, N.C."

Which one would you read? I skipped the first two because I got the gist of what the articles would be, especially with the little bit of explanation in the subheads. Not to sound callous, but yes, there are challenges in predicting the intensity of a hurricane, and yes, Barry’s peeps are going to be more prepared than George’s peeps were. Hindsight being 20/20 and all.

But who wouldn’t want to read about “A community born of disaster?” Who hasn’t imagined him or herself stuck in a hotel that becomes home during a catastrophe, and forming a community with your fellow stuck-ees?

It’s that kind of information that explains why I love reading small town newspapers that talk about the Smith’s grease fire and the minor damage to their lladro figurines or which local tree has a virus. But it’s more than that.

The first two articles are about science and charts and plans and numbers, and the last article is about people and emotions. And while information is important to have and to hold, instinct and humanity are priceless and should never be forgotten or forsaken. Humanize your thinking, your writing, your idea creation. Put a face or faces on the challenge. You might have fewer hard facts to go on, but you’ll be a whole lot more interesting to talk to.

I'll pay you not to like my product

2011-08-18T04:46:00.000-07:00

This is kind of genius.

One way to get people to use your product is to get the people they admire to use your product. Hence, celebrity endorsers, product placement, league deals, sponsorships, etc. It enables even simple little products to dream of someday becoming the next George Foreman Grill.

But the field is getting more and more crowded, endorsements are becoming less and less meaningful, and consumer cynicism around celebrity endorsers grows daily. So I love this Twisted thinking.

It’s a brilliant way for Abercrombie to make clear who they are, by saying exactly what they’re not. Not only are they publicly disassociating from Jersey Shore, they feel so strongly about distancing themselves, they’ll pay to prove it!

And they do it in a way that their target can relate to. “I wouldn’t go out with Danny Schuman if you paid me.” A familiar-sounding high school refrain (and a little too close to home...). Point is, you have to really really not like something to pay money not to be connected to it.

It’s irrelevant whether Snooki or The Situation takes the dough. It’s the offer, and the clear meaning behind it, that counts (In fact, some are now saying it's a big back-to-school publicity stunt).

Either way, it's smart. Abercrombie thinks so little of the Jersey Shorers, they’d rather give them money than have the cast members wear their clothes. Fun, ballsy, stake-in-the-ground move. Makes the brand feel like it’s iconoclastic and trendy simply because they buck other trends.

Suicide-preventing pens!

2011-07-29T14:03:00.000-07:00

I’ve been away from the blog for a while helping other people come up with great ideas, but in the words of Sir Isaac Newton, great ideas never take a vacation. Here’s the proof:

Who knew there’s a magical, lifesaving pen out there? A pen that has literally prevented people from killing themselves!

Actually, I don’t have any proof of this, but the last time I lost an entire notebook of notes and thoughts from crucial client meetings, the only thing that stopped me from killing myself was a bottle of Chianti and an Ally McBeal marathon.

So this pen is called the Echo smartpen from livescribe. First, you have to write on a special notepad. Then, when you connect it to your computer, your notes, scribbles, drawings, etc, are instantly and magically uploaded. And when you click back on your page, the pen tells you when you made that note or drawing.

I’m not doing justice to all the pen can do. Put it this way. For anyone who has taken notes and then forgot about…
--Where you put them
--When you had the conversation
--What the context or reason was for the conversation
--What the hell they mean !#$#$%@$%#!#
…this is technological manna from heaven. Gives your brain a break, your anger a breather, your sanity a refresh.

The single biggest question I had: Why didn’t Steve Jobs get there first with an ipen? The answer, of course, is that he was beaten to the punch. By a PC, no less. But like all things PC, it just doesn’t look as cool as the Mac version.

More on great ideas to come.

Please look up when you're talking to me. Or not.

2011-05-13T13:00:00.000-07:00

This new development is definitely one of two things:

A brilliant idea that perfectly takes advantage of how things currently work, as well as a way to use new technology to get more kids involved at school.

Or a sad commentary on how unpersonal things will someday be.

I hate the idea of people “talking” to each other a few feet away while looking down at a screen, but I love the possibility of students finding new ways to interpret art.

It’ll be fascinating to see how the next generation is able to relate socially beyond their screens. I have no idea how it’ll turn out, but I’m pretty sure it’ll be good business for chiropracters.

How Social Media helps fuel great ideas

2011-05-06T04:24:00.000-07:00

The best ideas come from the gut. They emerge from a feeling that what you’re creating is important.

They gestate for days or months or even years. Consciously or subconsciously, you’ve been collecting all that time and storing stuff up: Experiences you’ve endured or enjoyed, words you’ve heard, images your brain has captured.

You’ve been building empathy.

And then, one day, a ripped photograph shows up in your back yard.

You don’t know the people in the picture, but you know where it came from, because a few days before, tornadoes ripped through cities and towns that surrounded your own. And while your town, somehow, was spared, many, many more were not. Houses were destroyed, and priceless personal possessions were blown away. Some, for hundreds of miles.

The photograph in your hand, of a little girl in a cheerleading uniform, or grandparents on their wedding day, is a visceral reminder that it could have been you who lost everything.

This happened to Patty Bullion of Lester, Alabama. When she found a ripped picture of an older man and his dog, she posted it on Facebook, on a page that she created, titled simply, “Pictures and Documents found after the April 27, 2011 Tornadoes.” A woman 175 miles away posted almost immediately that the picture was of her grandfather, who had died in the tornadoes. You can only imagine how much the picture must have meant to the woman.

You can read about what happened from there in The New York Times, but as you can probably guess, many, many more items have since been posted, and many people have claimed them.

If you read some of the posts on the page, you’ll see the true genius of Social Media and how it gets people engaged, involved, and prompts them to do something. It certainly proves the power of people who care. That’s the first step in creating an idea that gets people to act.

If you're dying for a good idea...*

2011-03-10T04:56:00.000-08:00

Costco, home of 2 pound hunks of mozzarella, 10 man tents and $200 cabernets, sells caskets. If this is not news to you, I’m sorry (in more ways than one).

Let me start by saying, I love going to Costco.

I don’t mind the crowds. At checkout, they get you through the lines amazingly fast, and I like looking at people’s carts while I’m waiting to pay. It’s a great way to see all the wonderful things that are potentially in my future (an 8-pack of John Wayne Certified Organic Black Pepper Flavor Beef Jerky! Who know John Wayne was into organic!?).

I just love all the stuff. I don’t know why four boxes of Honey Nut Cheerios is better than one, but it just is. Maybe it’s American’s unofficial motto (“Gimme More!”) that drives people to fill their Costco carts.

For me, it offers the perverse challenge of getting through the Unofficial Home of Excess without going off my list. I love leaving with just the couple of things we need. I think it pisses some people off, indignant that I could go to Overshop Heaven and leave with just blueberries, batteries and water.

For my latest excursion to Costco I showed up right when they opened on a Saturday morning and took advantage of the empty store to walk down every aisle. I saw all the things I usually miss when I’m flying from the beer to the water to the pharmacy (with a stop at salmon).

At the end of the row with shredders and filing cabinets, I found the above aforementioned casket area. Glory Be! You can buy the last box you’ll ever be in, at the biggest box you’ve ever been in.

It’s genius. They sell tires, and gas, and vacations, and blinds…so why not make what will arguably be your last purchase at the same place where you buy all the things that help you enjoy life? It makes perfect sense. It’s a great idea. A bit macabre, perhaps, but if the Caramel Apple Pie rocks at Costco (which it does), why wouldn’t the caskets?

The only thing I wonder—and I didn’t stay long enough to find out—how many do you have to buy?

*posthumous thanks to Sid Rosset for this oldie but goodie.

The award for best use of hair extensions in a tv commercial goes to…

2011-03-03T07:21:00.000-08:00

I love this commercial.

I don’t write about TV ads much anymore because they’re so pre-millennium, but there’s still nothing like moving film to disrupt your emotional state. In this case, in a good way.

This spot captures human nature subtly and beautifully in fun but understated performances. Each time you watch you notice a nice new detail. I especially love the way the dad gets his pony tail and then one more when he hears the second part of the boy’s career goals.

And it clearly brings to life the product’s selling proposition: that there’s such a great variety of flavors, there will be something for everyone.

In a world of executional dazzle it’s nice to see something as mundane as a family dinner become so funny, relevant, and engaging. And convincing. Let’s hear it for clarity and simplicity

How do you Know?

2011-02-18T07:59:00.000-08:00

The amount of money spent on determining ad effectiveness is second only to the amount of money producing the work (Or is it? Sometimes I wonder…). The first questions clients ask about a piece of communication is whether it’s getting good ROI, or something that indicates that it’s working.

One of my all-time favorite ad-related quotes is the gem from John Wanamaker, followed closely of course by this one from Amy Adams.

I was reminded of both quotes when I read about the decision facing e*trade about what to do with their advertising campaign: To pull or not to pull. For years, the work has been great. Very memorable, killed on the Super Bowl year after year, even though the talking baby thing has been done over and over since Bruce Willis channeled little Mikey in Look Whose Talking.

My favorite e*trade ad is probably the one with the clown. ("I really underestimated the creepiness..."). I’m sure you have yours.

These are some great talking babies. But once again, the question, “What makes successful advertising?” is being asked, because they continue to lag behind their competitors.

Many agencies say “we’ll make your brand famous,” which makes a ton of sense, especially when a brand has low awareness. But once the awareness numbers are up, clients want sales to go up too. And what makes an ad famous doesn’t always help make people run out of the house to buy.

So what to do? Unfortunately for e*trade, they’ve been hit by factors other than advertising that have affected their bottom line. But the most public way to talk to the street is to talk about changing the public face of the brand, and that means advertising.

So they’re taking an interesting angle, trying to keep it and work with it at the same time. Sounds like a good idea to me. They have such a valuable equity, something that reminds people of their brand, that they can use different ways in different media.

And you can’t say enough about word of mouth. It’s just not something you can buy; having an ownable property is invaluable, and you can’t put a price on having to reinvent the (wheel) every time it’s time to crank up the marketing machine.

My definition of ad success is not really measurable (take that, you quant people). I’ve always believed great marketing communications serve mostly as reminders, and partially as educational tools, and I’d say a piece of communication is effective if the product or service leaps to the front of the cranial cortex when a person is at the point of consideration.You can’t make anybody buy anything (unless of course you’re Steve Jobs).

So I like where you’re going, e*trade. Good luck.

Good news for romantics (and retailers)

2011-02-14T06:33:00.000-08:00

You can’t buy love, but according to a study from the National Retail Foundation, people have trying harder to disprove that notion this year. Valentine’s Day spending in 2011 is the highest it’s been since before the economy crapped out.

The average person will shell out $116 on red roses, heart shaped cookies, and I Love You thongs. A hundred and sixteen bucks! I guess someone must be buying a few of these to bring that average up.

What’s the explanation? I have no research on this, but I have a firm belief:

Valentine’s Day is a purely emotional holiday. Nothing rational about it; it’s all about human connection. You could argue there’s a rational reason to give a gift on V-Day, that if you play your cards right, your reward might greatly justify the gift. Probably explains all of the I Love You thongs.

This wonderful research proves that when it comes to selling, heartstrings trump purse strings.

And as an aside, I love the fact that folks are spending more on love. It’s a sure sign that we’re on our way back to financial confidence. POTUS should use this in one of his upcoming speeches. What’s a better economic indicator?

Let’s hear it for unorthodox delivery! (And I don’t mean water births)

2011-01-31T05:21:00.000-08:00

I watched Northwestern almost take down the #1 team in the country Saturday night, without their best 3-point shooter, John Shurna. Ever seen John Shurna shoot a 3-pointer? He shoots with his arms parallel to his shoulders (instead of above them). It looks like he’s trying to release homing pigeons. It’s just not natural. But it’s beautiful. Because it works. He’s 3rd in scoring and 4th in 3-pointers made in the Big Ten.

Check it out, about 2:15 into this video.

Makes me think of Rick Barry. Rick Barry was old school when old school was still new school. Ever see him shoot a free throw? He did it underhand. Like when you were 3 years old. Like the smelly guy in the tank top with the chest fur at the gym who doesn’t know what you’re supposed to do with a basketball.

Don’t believe me? Take a look.

He led the league in free throw shooting percent seven times and had a 90% career average. Not too shabby.

How about Jason Belmonte? Mr. Belmonte’s unorthodox approach to bowling would make Earl Anthony roll over in his grave (with some nice English).

He bowls with two hands.

The 2009 PBA Rookie of the Year (Professional Bowling Association), is a handsome, sunglasses, 25-year old rising star, and drawing new folks to the sport. He’s kinda fun to watch.

Finally, Tim Lincecum. The right-handed pitcher for the San Francisco Giants has a crazy, homemade, ridiculously efficient delivery to the plate. The main difference is in his insanely elongated stride, which helps him propel the ball to the batter. The normal stride for a pitcher is 77-87% of his height; Lincecum’s stride is 129%, some 7 ½ feet. It’s amazing to watch.

Does it work? Hmmm…he won the Cy Young in 2008 and 2009, and last year, pitched 8 innings and won the deciding game of the World Series for the Giants. His unorthodox style—and his goofy hair—makes him a standout in the league.

I could go on. But I think you get the point.

If different is good, unorthodox could be special. Give it a shot sometime.

Now that’s what I call a pacifier

2011-01-21T09:28:00.000-08:00

This month’s winner in the “I thought of that years ago but dang it, someone actually did it!” category is the Adult Beverage Company. Let’s see if I can explain this without getting too complicated:

Chocolate milk + vodka = Yum!

Still with me?

Yup, another wonderfully simple idea hitting the big time, growing in leaps and bounds, getting widespread press for a cute little idea. Let’s hear it for the two mixologist-moms who cooked it up in their kitchens after livening up their kids chocolate milk after the little ones went to bed.

Further proof that the best ideas are sometimes right in front of your face and almost always super simple. Executing them? Now that there’s the hard part.

The first step is the biggest. After that, just keep your feet moving and soon you’ll be running.

And I have heard that chocolate milk is a good recovery source when you sweat…

Keep your friends close and your data closer

2011-01-07T07:54:00.000-08:00

Being a marketer means having a love-hate relationship with data.

I love the way data helps us better understand what the hell our brands really are and how they stack up against competitors. I love the way data can tell us what’s going on in the heads of our consumers.

Data helps us formulate the right strategies to create the right target-facing articulations of those strategies, without which we’d be making art or art’s sake instead of intelligent, focused art, and for that reason alone I would bow down at the data throne.

But as someone responsible for creating the communications that will best engage with and convince consumers, I’ve spent a lifetime ruing the potentially damaging effect data can have on a powerful (and usually therefore polarizing) piece of communication. As well as the hold it can have on tentative clients; smart people who can get freaked out by what’s at stake, and use data as a crutch to take the road most travelled and fall back on safer (and usually less engaging and convincing) executions.

I’ve always tried to treat data as the two-faced friend in high school who I never allowed out of the corner of my eye. Helpful with schoolwork, great to have in a nonsensical conversation, full of the kind of gossip and information that would make me think, “I never would have thought of that myself.”

But also talking about me behind my back. Telling people things about me that they may have interpreted incorrectly or stretched into truths that didn’t really exist. Being wary. Very wary…

If only we employed data just for fun/goofy purposes, using wonderful facts and figures for daily conversation fodder, like the recent stats on Facebook relationships (sad to see seven million more people becoming single vs getting married).

But as long as there are products to brand and sell, there will be data.

So go ahead, crunch the numbers, hug them, smother them with affection. But just in case, remember to keep your friends close, and your data closer.

A great idea in need of resuscitation

2010-12-28T06:09:00.000-08:00

I’ve spent a lot of time in Los Angeles over the past 20 years, and I’d argue that LA is the least normal city in the world. In a wonderful, check-out-my-latest-face-lift, don’t-my-fake-boobs-look-natural kind of way.

The home of plastic surgery and plastic people, LA is also home to Skeletons in the Closet. A perfect name for any kind of store in a city where dirt is gold, but when it’s a shop run by the LA County Coroner, it’s even more perfect.

Lunch coolers and travel mugs with the Coroner’s logo, welcome mats and beach towels with chalk outlines of a body…lots of fun stuff. They even have a web site.

It’s an ingenius way of thinking outside the body bag to make a few extra bucks.

Problem is, they’ve been losing money, mainly because they’ve been selling the same merchandise for a while (most likely to the same people).

Won’t you help?

Please buy some dead guy stuff. Or better yet, send them some ideas for new stuff they could sell.

Embalming fluid as a hangover cure to bring you back to life after a rough night? Specials for couples like body bags for two? Or maybe rentals for a half hour on the slab?

One side note: This New York Times article mentions how Skeletons was created, but I’m betting whoever came up with the idea was watching Night Shift at the time. Bill Blazejowski, where are you when we need you?

Today’s great ideas are tomorrow’s wrinkles

2010-12-17T08:17:00.000-08:00

When I read about an intriguing new idea it makes the corners of my mouth turn up and my eyes scrunch just a bit in a happy little salute. This happened the other day when I read a New York Times article on some of the New Year’s Eve tie-ins on Times Square.

Lip soother and kiss enhancer Nivea is a natural sponsor, giving out thousands of samples in preparation of thousands of midnight kisses.

Document company Cintas’ clever Good Riddance Day on December 28 gives people the opportunity to shred documents they want to forget about from the previous year. A woman from Tennessee won a trip to New York to be the first to shred: she’ll say Good Riddance to her medical bills from a life threatening operation in 209 that she paid off in 2010.

Smart, compelling, fun, relevant.

The only thing better than hearing about great ideas is watching them come to life in the very best possible way. Which makes me think of Waterford Crystal’s sponsorship of the ball that drops every year. No logo on it, people; they’ve just done a great job of popularizing the connection over the years. Now it fees like no other crystal is worthy of the Time Square ball.

A brilliant tie-in that’s incredibly well known with minimal promotional efforts. We should all be so lucky.

Riddle Me This

2010-12-09T05:00:00.000-08:00

What’s a five letter word for “incites?”

I don’t know, because I’m not a crossword puzzler, but give me a little time. Trying to figure it out could help me land on a great answer to my next big conundrum.

Courtesy of Northwestern University (Go Cats) via The New York Times comes compelling findings concerning the power of puzzles to help people solve other challenges. Good news for those of us in the business of convincing people to trust their creative instincts and use them to solve problems in unconventional ways.

For all of you out there thinking about how to solve your current vexing challenge—I’m talking to you, marketers, cosmetologists, cosmonauts, animal husbandry professors, pizza twirlers and highway surveyors—yes, all of you, anyone in the business of coming up with ideas: take heed. This is a shot across your bow if you don’t believe in the power of using creative solutions to get to new creative solutions. Getting your brain into the ready state to show it’s stuff. Drawing order from chaos.

The next time you march into conceptual war, arm yourself with some unconventional yet highly effective tools of the trade: A good knock-knock joke, or a tough Sudoku. Get your synapses into a positive mood. According to these wily Wildcats, it’ll lead to better problem solving.

Up with Employees!

2010-11-10T05:10:00.000-08:00

People who are ahead of their time are national treasures.

Danny Meyer, one of my two professional heroes (Steve Jobs is the other), is a great example. And it has nothing to do with his restaurants, which make some of the best food in the world and have hosted some of the most memorable meals of my life.

In fact, for a man who’s been made famous by his restaurants, I’d argue that his cuisine isn’t revolutionary. Just amazing. It’s his business thinking that’s visionary.

I was reminded of Danny Meyer’s exceptionally ahead-of-its-time thinking when I saw this article in Ad Age, extolling the virtues of employees and the value they can bring to a business. Especially in times like these when consumers mistrust corporate entities. Hence the success of companies like Southwest Airlines, where the employees are the company.

Danny Meyer has known and practiced this since the day he opened the doors of his first restaurant, Union Square Café, in 1985.

He has long professed that his employees, not his customers, are the most important people in his restaurants. His theory on “51 percenters” is an incredibly insightful way to look at hiring and running a business.

Any way you can share in Danny Meyer’s genius is a good way. If you’re ever in NYC, check out one of his restaurants. And when you get a chance, check out his book, Setting The Table (Ad Age should’ve checked it out before they published their article). So many great applications to business and to life. Extremely satisfying, and a lot less fattening.

Chia Pests

2010-11-03T07:04:00.000-07:00

I hate bad puns but I love great ideas.

So it’s with mixed feelings that I send you to this article in the New York Times. You’ll see for yourself that smart, less expensive ideas are still alive and well.

It didn’t hurt that the only client guidelines in this case were to “make it fun and engaging.” That’s every idea-thinker-upper’s dream direction.

And you’ll also see that having less money can sometimes mean taking on greater potential risk. It’s the point of this story. And the fact that this client was ultimately willing to take that risk paid off for them.

But this idea was also extremely relevant and incredibly strategic, and that’s the best part. They captured the moment in a way that highlighted their product and got attention in a good way.

That’s nothing to poo-poo.

Profit is overrated

2010-10-30T05:12:00.000-07:00

Are you confident enough to give away some of your best stuff?

Nordstrom is.

I love it when someone or some entity is confident enough to be generous without worrying too much about how much they’re giving away. Creative partners, global leaders, basketball teammates…when you’ve got something someone else might want and can give it away, the good always gets greater.

I’m not saying Nordstrom’s latest announcement is completely selfless or entirely for the benefit of humanity. But it sure is a step in the right direction.

They’re opening a “philanthropic concept store” in Soho, with an eye turned to their goal of someday opening a flagship store in Manhattan , home and long time roost of Bloomingdales. The twist?

The store will give away all profits to charity.

This new endeavor is brilliant in many ways, not the least of which is getting New Yorkers to feel good about the Nordstrom name and ultimately getting them comfortable with setting foot in the store. With their legendary service, once they’re in the door, they’ll come back.

It also enables people to feel good about their purchases and charities to get lots and lots of unexpected donations.

If it’s true that confidence looks like generosity, then you better start spreadin’ the news, because Nordstrom is gonna be a part of it. New York, New York…

Boy, am I dumb. Seriously.

2010-10-27T06:26:00.000-07:00

Incredibly stupid blogger alert: I never realized that red velvet cupcakes were really chocolate cupcakes with red food coloring. I thought they were somehow made from a magic recipe that made them taste velvety. I didn’t even get chocolate so much. I just got red. Now I'm just red in the face.

My daughter ruined everything for me tonight when she told me they’re just chocolate cupcakes with red food coloring. It reminded me of the time in high school when the girl I was dating told me that C-O-L-O-N-E-L was pronounced “Kernel,” not “Kollonel.”

Rumors abound about the origin of red velvet, including a Neiman-Marcus Cookie-like story. But to me it just seems like one day there was just vanilla and chocolate, and the next day there were these mysterious, indulgent, red saliva-inducing velvet cupcakes everywhere. And they were awesome.

So where did they come from? There are theories, including stories that go back almost 100 years, which of course makes me feel even dumber (although I suppose they’ve been pronouncing “colonel” correctly for a lot longer).

I bet the person who invented them wishes she got credit for it. Such a great, simple idea. The best kind. Take something that exists already, ask “What If?” and make it 10,000 times better.

Why texting is good for your brain

2010-10-20T07:13:00.000-07:00

The digital age will improve the way you think and write. And you can thank Friedhelm Hiilebrand.

I thought of Friedhelm this morning. I wanted to send an email to an old friend to congratulate her on her new job, but I only had her email from her old job. So I found her on Linked In, added her to my network, and attached a note, which was rejected because it was too long. 300 character limit.

Which is generous compared to the 160 characters you get for a text, and the 140 you get for Twitter.

So I revised my note to her, chopping and slicing words and phrases.

And it wasn’t just shorter, it was better. Better use of words and better use of her time. Tighter, smarter, more to the point.

So thank you, Friedhelm Hillebrand and your German friends, who created the universal texting length and whether meaning to or not, forced us to write in a more compact form.

Yes, I know our children speak in a consonant-less language and abbreviate everything, but it’s nothing the US military hasn’t been doing in spectacular fashion for decades, and they’ve survived pretty well.

Amidst the evils of rampant spellcheckmania and media multitasking, I’d argue that the digital age is forcing us to think and package our ideas more concisely, and write with intelligent restraint.

If only there was a character limit to powerpoint presentations.

Gross National Spending

2010-10-13T06:08:00.000-07:00

Meg Whitman is making news. Not about her campaign, but about her spending: She’s set a record by spending $119 million of her own money in her race against Jerry Brown in the California Gubernatorial race.

(By the way, who doesn’t love saying Gubernatorial?)

With that much money, she could afford to pay the payrolls for all but four major league baseball teams. She could buy the Pirates four times, but unfortunately, she couldn’t come anywhere close to making payroll for the Yankees. She probably couldn’t pay for their starting rotation.

Meg could pay the entire roster of any NBA franchise; she could help her home state by taking care of the league leading Lakers at 91 million, with just enough room to pay Kobe’s legal bills.

If she wanted, she could buy out New Zealand. She’s spent more than the GNP of 129 or the 182 nations in the International Monetary Fund, including Kuwait, Ukraine, and the Kiwis.

And if she fancied coffee, she could get somewhere in the vicinity of 30 million Venti lattes, which would keep her caffeinated for just over 81,000 years. She could even get soy and still be good for many millennia to come.

The ironies: While it’s been estimated that California television viewers will see one of her commercials an average of 26 times per hour, Brown has more money left in his coffers, and Whitman still trails him in the race.

Maybe she needs to take her talents to another state.

Is this what Keith Richards was drinking all that time?

2010-10-11T18:30:00.000-07:00

Sometime a few years ago, Ponce de Leon and Xaviera Hollander came to the owners of Pom Wonderful in the same dream.

The result was a body of advertising materials from POW Wonderful that has been at times extremely effective and at other times almost illegal.

First they tried to convince you that you would pretty much never ever drop dead if you drank POM, in simple, clean, eye-catching ads..

Now they’re letting you know that POM Wonderful just may be an aphrodisiac. Striking print images and TV commercials too, with Malcolm McDowell doing the VO (he’s awesome).

Pretty average ads, some not even that clear in their message. But the FTC, as expected, has taken notice. So it must be working, right?

Makes me want POW wonderful for two reasons.

I want to have a lot of sex and live forever, sure.

But in case that isn’t really completely true, I admire them for putting a message out there that makes them stand apart and get noticed.

The nobodies are the new somebodies

2010-07-16T05:08:00.000-07:00

I didn’t say that; Guy Kawasaki did.

It came out in an interview a week and a half ago about Fast Company’s Influence Project, in answer to a question about why Social Media is so powerful.

It’s true in so many ways; the faceless, nameless, abbreviation-filled world of social media allows anyone to do just about anything online, from creating Super Bowl ads (for $2000) that win a million dollars to sending in stoopid piktures of kats with misspelled capshuns. Both of which, millions and millions of people have seen and loved.

Appropriately enough, the interview was short, but full of interesting tidbits from Kawasaki, the former chief evangelist for Apple. I follow him on Twitter and have always been intrigued by the fact that he offers up almost no original content, just links to things he finds interesting. Which, if his followers go check out, makes him eminently more influential. He’s definitely a somebody.

But the interesting thing is, it took him a while to become a somebody that people trust and believe and are willing to stick with and listen to over the long haul. He wrote books, he spoke, he got visible. he worked it. I haven’t heard about the guys who created the winning Super Bowl ad since they created the winning Super Bowl ad. They spiked and faded.

Guy might be right in his assessment of nobodies being the new somebodies. But as in any marketing effort for a brand (which he certainly is), in order to create loyalty and relationships, you need to have a diligent, consistent, strategic effort. It takes a lot of time (or in Kawasaki’s case, a staff of ghosts).

In the era of social media, nobodies can be somebodies, but if they’re interested in anything other than fleeting fame, they better work at it. With apologies to Andy Warhol, everyone will get their 15 seconds of fame. If they want it more than once, they better work at it.

The wondrousness of snap decisions

2010-07-13T18:16:00.000-07:00

I was in my favorite paper store today—great cards, stationary, writing utensils, doo-dads for making cool stuff--and as I was paying, a very stylish, sophisticated-looking older couple (around 70ish) walked in almost out of breath and asked the salesperson—demanded, really— “What’s the quickest you can make wedding invitations!?!?”

Talk about a question that conjures up a thousand different stories.

Their printer’s building (and their daughter’s newly printed invitations) burned down last night.

They both floated in and out of relationships but nothing ever clicked and neither ever married, and they just (finally!) found each other on an S&M site and knew instantaneously that they were bound (literally) to be together.

Or perhaps they just fell in love without the aid of J-date, Vegas, or martinis…just a random meeting earlier in the day, perhaps a misunderstanding around a Mate Latte at Argo Tea…their eyes met and they knew. And they decided to get married. Quickly. No time to waste, right?

So they started with invitations. Who knows where they were going next? Maybe down the block to the bakery. There’s a church down the street. And a travel agency.

They’re probably in Tahiti by now.

Look how far a quick decision from the gut can take you.

Up with Humans!

2010-07-05T06:01:00.000-07:00

You know what the great thing about the world is?

Humans.

If you don’t like humans, or think they’re annoying, please stop reading. If their smell bothers you on the El, or the way they slurp their soup too loudly at Panera makes you want to put headphones on, you are excused.

Because I think humans are awesome, I say, “Up with people!”

One of the great things about humans is, they come up with amazing ideas. They think up things like the theory of relativity and the Flowbee (800 watts of stylish suction).

The guy who sells me my teriyaki chicken has ideas about a lot of things, some good, some bad; his recent ideas were around Chicago’s July 4 fireworks and how more people could see them (make ‘em bigger and higher!”).

A few years ago, the marketing world realized the value of humans and the power of their ideas and became an enabler to the development of User Created Content, also known as Consumer Generated Content. In other words, marketing communications that’s created by regular humans instead of professional marketers.

It’s some of the very best marketing communications out there. Here’s a very recent example. And here’s one of my favorites, a TV commercial created by real humans and voted by humans to be the best Super Bowl ad of 2009—and which helped coin the temporarily famous headline, “Two nobodies from nowhere.” Good stuff, don’t you think? You gotta love real human ideation.

One reason humans usually like Consumer Generated Content so much may be because it’s created by real humans. It doesn't have to jump over the many hurdles like an idea created by real marketers, such as focus group testing and rounds and rounds of revisions, so it hasn't had to have too many changes along the way, and the idea is often closer to what it originally looked like. The work may not always be as strategic as ideas that go through rounds of focus groups, but other humans sure seem to like it.

Just think if real humans created all of the marketing communications. It might be marketing anarchy. But it sure would be fun.

Can't beat fun at the old baseball trapezoid

2010-06-28T06:05:00.000-07:00

Collaboration in sports is usually a good thing. Just about every team has a huge amount of talent in the locker room, and often it’s chemistry that separates champs from chumps.

How often do you hear of a team making a late season acquisition of a player who has won championships on different teams? It’s not often the most talented guy available; in fact, more often that not, it’s a just-above average player who’s an excellent “clubhouse guy.” He’s a natural facilitator—he keys great collaboration and he helps get people to perform.

(And conversely, you only have to look as far as my beloved Wrigley Field to see two cases of the opposite of great clubhouse guys-- Milton Bradley and Carlos Zambrano--people whose poisonous attitudes have been able to take down a team all by themselves.)

So when is collaboration a bad thing in sports? When it comes to building baseball stadiums.

The interesting thing about ballparks, compared to football fields or basketball courts, is that no playing fields are the same. Football fields are 100 yards long, basketball courts are 94 feet from end to end and 50 feet from side to side. Baseball stadiums are all wonderfully uniquely different.

This was brought to my attention by some smart folks at snippets.com who used Google Maps to trace the shapes of all uncovered Major League baseball parks. The variance in shapes and sizes are truly amazing. While some teams actually do play on baseball diamonds, others play on baseball rhombuses and baseball trapeziods.

I won’t rant about this being another reason baseball is the best, most interesting and unique sport on the planet (despite most humans being unable to make it through more than an inning or two without going go get something to eat.)

I will suggest that the very best cultures allow for individuality to thrive even when great collaboration makes the difference between success and failure.

I daer yoo not 2 laff

2010-06-18T16:03:00.000-07:00

Pablo Picasso may not have been real hip to computers, but he might have changed his tune if he'd hung around long enough to experience all of the wonderful stupidity of the internet.

Visionary entrepreneurs are building empires on the foundation of pictures of cats wearing ties accompanied by misspelled captions. I dare you not to laugh at Lolcats.

Or Fail blog.

Or There, I fixed it.

All these sites are owned by the Cheezburger network, a bunch of crazies who identify possible new Funny by monitoring community forums, blogs, and websites and use the intel to spin off new sites. The sites are easy to make and spread and they’re hugely popular. Thousands of submissions are rejected; many of the rejects are the basis new sites.

It’s a bastard stepchild of America’s Funniest Home Videos, a wonderful way to make something out of nothing by coming up with a new way to Twist what already exists, and it’s brilliant.

So see what's under that pile on your desk. Pay closer attention when you're surfing the web. Take another look at the back of your cereal box. Never hesitate to take a good look at what you already have; it's a good way to discover something new. It might even happen by accident.

Just ask these guys.

Pablo Picasso was right (and wrong) about computers

2010-06-16T06:24:00.000-07:00

“What good are computers? They can only give you answers.”

Thank you, Pablo, for criticizing computers in a way that doesn’t make you seem like a curmudgeonly old complainer like the other 40+ers who love computers 98% of the time but once in a while curse them for hurtling the world along faster and faster each day, and specifically, for the continued contraction of deadlines they’ve caused. If negativity is the enemy of creative thinking, then Time is its best friend. Give a good amount of time to some healthy collaboration and cognitive dissonance, allow time for Ideation, and watch the ideas explode in million wonderful directions.

Among the many things I wonder about Gen Y is if they ever curse computers and their very existence. Digital natives live with computers as appendages and don’t consider their continued minute by minute use as causing progress, as much as facilitating every day doings. Mason Bates is one example.

I would guess he’s made every tux-wearing symphony subscriber nauseous, and caused every classical musician to create Mason Bates voodoo dolls and stick hollow point pins in the eyes and hands. It’s interesting work, and it’s certainly art. And with all due respect to Mr. Picasso, I’d bet Mr. Bates’ compositions have created far more questions than answers.

Across media, there’s no doubt that the creative product thrives when computers are involved. It just means the art takes shape a little differently, which qualifies it for a spot on the evolutionary timeline that started when the first splash of paint hit the cave wall. It’s not about how it’s created, as long as someone is creating it.

Perhaps our friend Pablo said it best:

"There are painters who transform the sun into a yellow spot, but there are others who, thanks to their art and intelligence, transform a yellow spot into the sun."

The military giveth, the military borrowith

2010-06-10T05:42:00.000-07:00

The Military has given great things to this country, not the least of which being freedom for all of her citizens and pretty much the rest of the free world. So it’s nice to see the military being smart (and humble) enough to look to the most American of all sports for some of their Ideas:

The National Football League (sorry, baseball, just check the numbers).

The US military has over 24 million minutes of video collected by remotely piloted aircraft, ready and waiting to be used to track down the bad guys. But it’s relatively useless because military analysts have no way to search it or know what information it holds.

Enter the NFL, which has “the technology so you can pull an instant replay of every Brett Favre touchdown over his career.” From where did the idea to borrow from the NFL come? It could have come from a Five Star General chilling on a standard issue khaki couch one Sunday afternoon, but I think there was a secret ideation session led by an Army facilitator in a bunker somewhere south of Kandahar.

Either way, some smart person in the military who has probably read A Technique for Producing Ideas understood the value of putting together existing elements to come up with a sparkling new, smart idea. Now if he could only figure out a way to make Instant Replay in the NFL about a hundred times faster.

A lesson from D-Day: Great Ideas can change the world

2010-06-08T05:43:00.000-07:00

"In wartime truth is so precious that she should always be attended by a bodyguard of lies."

This from one of the most quotable men of the 20th century, Winston Churchill, describing the massive disinformation and deception plan concocted by the Allies prior to the D-Day invasion of Normandy.

The multi-spoked idea was to stuff the Nazi information pipeline with enough facts, figures and plans to convince the Nazis that a much larger operation was coming, spread out over a greater swath of territory, and they wouldn’t be able to properly defend the real invasion points.

The deception was so elaborate that it must have taken months to develop, as well as the cooperation of hundreds of minds across thousands of miles. It included the creation of completely fictitious military divisions, like “FUSAG,” the First US Army Group, which did not actually exist. But the Germans believed it did, due to fake radio traffic and the use of double agents.

It also included parachuting dummies behind enemy lines and dropping strips of aluminum foil cut to a length that corresponded to German radar waves to create phantom fleets of bombs and troops.

Imagine the precise coordination of the cognitively disparate people necessary to make it successful. If one person betrayed the deception—and there were incidents that came close, resulting in quarantines and demotions—the whole plan might have been blown, and we could be watching Hogan’s Heroes episodes today that end very differently.

65 years later, we’re free to have Memorial Day picnics to remember the heroes and watch amazing stories of D-Day on TV. Military terms are everywhere, even in the world of corporate America, where, ironically enough, we use “war rooms” to figure out how we’re going to capture market share.

The sessions that the Allied leaders conducted in the original War Rooms were filled with amazingly creative thinkers and tremendous creative problem solving. Talk about an impactful ideation. Shows you what truly inspired collaboration can do.

When Stinking is good

2010-06-04T05:18:00.000-07:00

Often, the very best thing you can do is chuck everything you ever learned out the window. Take your B school professor’s proclamations, those focus groups that seemed to make sense at the time, the very best ideation sessions, and throw them all away. Run hard the other way. Don’t look back.

Go with your gut and take it to the bank. Or the poorhouse.

The wisdom of telling Conventional Wisdom to take a hike isn’t brand new. It doesn’t always work but it surely is ballsy, and right or wrong, it’s proof that conviction still lives. And if it’s so ballsy that it’s brazenly outrageous, you can spin it positively.

One of my favorite stories is about Red Bull. It was originally a Thai energy drink called Krating Daeng, which in English, of course, means Red Bull. Even though people gave no chance of success to an energy drink with the stupidly ridiculous name of Red Bull, founder Dietrich Mateschitz, with nothing other than his gut informing him, stuck by the name. Red Bull’s done pretty well in the wing-giving business.

So now Domino’s re-launches their reformulated pizza by proclaiming that for years they’ve had really bad pizza. TV commercials show focus group footage of people being extremely critical of Domino’s taste, from the cardboard crust to the ketchupy sauce, and then they surprise those same critics by delivering the new pizzas, which, surprise!, taste awesome!

Whether or not clever editing helped play a role in the transformation of these pizza experts, the story is told well and believably. The spots work and the idea works, most likely because Domino’s really was terrible all those years (unlike the old Coke, which has always been pretty good) and they really have made it better. And they’ve received a boatload of favorable press, including a story on NPR.

So the next time someone tells you negative advertising doesn’t work, or you should never utter even one micro-mini-negative peep about your product, consider the one thing that’s even more powerful than contradicting Conventional Wisdom:

The truth.

Life > Marketing

2010-06-01T05:54:00.000-07:00

There’s life, and there’s marketing, and anyone who’s good at separating the two will be more likely to succeed at both.

There’s almost always a way to solve a tough marketing challenge. Good foundational strategic thinking, a little ideation to get the creative juices flowing, some strong, sincere collaboration, and you’re on your way.

But some of life’s tougher challenges offer a thornier prognosis and it takes some truly creative thinking to get to not just smart, but workable solutions. So let’s hear it for Tim King and Urban Prep.

You can wiki his history. Or you can read the latest about Urban Prep, the inner city Chicago High School, which just announced that 100% of their graduating seniors will be attending four-year colleges or universities. Not bad, considering only 4% of them could read at grade level when they started four years ago.

Mr. King and his faculty did it with a laser-beam focus on academics, by providing good role models, and judging from the khaki-tie-and-blazer uniforms, an enormous amount of structure and discipline.

But they also twisted the way students are considered: the school’s motto is “We Believe,” which speaks volumes about how the teachers approach their challenge—and their students-- and every student is addressed as “Mr.”

I like to talk about Twisting Your Thinking to find smart, unexpected solutions to tough marketing problems. “Tough problems” takes on new meaning in the Englewood neighborhood where Urban Prep educates kids and helps them succeed in life.

While marketing will never be as important as life, the success of Urban Prep shows the tremendous power of thinking creatively to meet a challenge.

A healthy dose of Belief doesn't hurt either.

Brilliant!!!!

2010-05-08T14:08:00.000-07:00

There’s nothing in the world like the pubs, the Borough and Portobello markets are chock full of the most amazing and wonderful food, clothing, and chatchkes, and the classic English sights like Parliament Square and Big Ben are iconic and justifiably famous. But you can have Westminster and Buckingham; this is the single greatest thing about London.

It’s the very best way to get around town. Cheap, easy, and safe, with a heavy emphasis on Easy. The color coded tracks are a topographical (vs geographical) map, so while the distances aren’t exact, they’re intuitive, and clear to brains that don’t know the ins and outs of the city. Compare this wonder of creative thinking to an earlier version of the Tube map to see how much easier the current one is to navigate.

Other than perhaps Paris, I bet there’s nowhere you’ll see an equal amount of tourists and natives using public transportation, and I’d like to thank all the locals who tolerated me bumping into them from behind last week while I read my guidebook. Thanks for sharing your transit system and your beer. Lovely.

Hurts so good

2010-04-26T16:36:00.000-07:00

The best advice in the world is often the most obvious. This is another reason why Steve Jobs is one of my business-world heroes.

Sometimes thinking differently simply involves good old fashioned editing. Stripping it down and leaving what’s best. It can feel painful, but just wait til you see how great the stuff is that’s left.

I love this woman

2010-04-19T20:42:00.000-07:00

And not just because she almost runs the Darma Initiative.

Actually, Dr. Regina Dugan runs Darpa, which, of course, stands for the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency, a terrible name for a cool agency. Hence, the intriguing acronym, from which I’m sure the Lost guys took inspiration (or stole) for their little TV show.

You can read about what she’s done; it’s nothing short of incredible. My greatest respect for her comes from the ways she’s inspired the big manly men who work for her. Dr. Dugan demands creativity and innovation and she gets it. She’s living proof that it truly is all about ideas, whether you’re working for the Transformational Convergence Technology Office or selling tacos.

The world of marketing should take notice of the way one of her projects was affected by the real-world power of Social Media, leaving no doubt as to its tremendous potential when she offered a $40,000 prize for finding some balloons and 500 teams from around the world joined in the hunt (yes, that’s a tease).

Dr. Dugan, you’re our kind of person, and you have a job at Twist waiting for you as soon as you get bored in Washington.

Embrace the bacruncheeesiness™

2010-04-06T20:12:00.000-07:00

One of the best things I ever put into my mouth was a “sandwich” of some nice marbled kosher corned beef between two crispy fried potato pancakes. I made sure there was a defibrillator standing by and enjoyed every bite.

One of Colonel Sanders’ offspring must have been standing by (although I can’t picture a Sanders at Manny’s Deli), or at least one of the marketing minions from Yum brands, because KFC has created their own version of the Jewish heart attack on a plate: The Double Down.

Check out that picture. I don’t even eat half the stuff on that sandwich and I want one, just to experience the bacruncheesiness.

Ever since that guy fell down the stairs holding the chocolate bar and the other guy was at the bottom of the stairs holding a jar of peanut better—and you Reese’s fans know what happened next--food manufacturers have realized the potentially new business opportunities in new food and flavor combinations.

The best of them are great examples of the best of Twisted Thinking. My next idea: The Tornado. Chocolate, bananas, and whipped cream between two funnel cakes.

I’m surprised they haven’t had that at the Wisconsin State Fair yet. A man can dream...

It’s the most wonderful time of the year

2010-03-30T11:51:00.000-07:00

This is (by far) my favorite time of year. My favorite things happen right around now: Baseball gets started (the teams I coach in my community, and the ones I watch on TV). Passover, my favorite holiday, hits right about now, and needless to say, as I write this to the hum of dueling leafblowers and lawnmowers outside my window, brown turns to green and snow shovels get replaced by deck chairs and the air just smells damn good.

There’s a reason “Hope Springs Eternal” has been appearing on T-shirts and bumper stickers and various media since Alexander Pope’s 1733 poem “An Essay on Man.” And it’s not just because it’s a great first line for a Haiku.

We all want to have Hope, whether it's for something better or tastier or easier or fluffier. It's human nature and without it we'd be lifeless, uninteresting lumps. Thing is, Hope seldom actively comes to us. Which is why Spring is so awesome.

It not only represents regeneration and recognizes the circle of life, it gives a nod to rebirth, as anyone who’s ever celebrated Easter or Passover can attest. I’m sure many of you seder-celebrators ate eggs last night, and I’m assuming you talked about all of the various significant explanations related to New Life. And coming from a Cubs fan, believe me, this is greatly appreciated every March.

Spring is the official season of Re. So rejuvenate, resuscitate, revitalize and revisit. Use this time of year to recharge your engines, take a step back from a daily challenge, and look at it a little differently. Try some collaboration while you're at it. Can't hurt.

Twist things up a little bit, and Hope will come to you.

Some things, people have figured out. Other things, they haven’t.

2010-03-22T21:15:00.000-07:00

A few things that people have definitely figured out:
How to crown an NCAA basketball champion
Grilled peanut butter banana and honey sandwiches (thanks Elvis)
Talking and driving (thanks, bluetooth)
One-to-One at the Apple store (Shout out to Janelle: you rock! Noone else ever could have taught me how to make a spread sheet!)
i-anything (although I’m skeptical on the ipad)
Gameday at Michigan Stadium
$1 for a hot dog at Roemer Park

A few things that people have definitely not figured out:
How to crown an NCAA football champion
Mass produced kosher food
Texting and driving
The mess Indra Nooyi created
Why baseball players wait until spring training to find out their rotator cuff is torn and they need season ending surgery right before the season starts (WHAT"S UP WITH THAT!?!?)
Whether Rich Rodriguez is making progress or completely screwing everything up
$100 for a seat in the Wrigley Field bleachers

Please add your own. Thank You.

Of puppets and love songs.

2010-03-18T20:36:00.000-07:00

How do you tell a story that’s already powerful?
How do you dramatize exceptional customer service?
How do you bring to life an already acknowledged product benefit in a way that makes people smile and notice?
Like this:

How do you feature a product that everyone knows in a new and unusual way?
How do you use a nice piece of music (yes, that’s Colin hay from Men at Work) to help tell a story?
How do you almost (but not quite) pull off a touching story for a car rental company?
Like this:

Like or hate, Zappos and Hertz approach their message delivery in different ways than the norm. You could argue that Nike beat Zappos to the puppets, and that plenty of brands have told sappy stories of love with their product woven in, but I haven’t seen ads like this in these types of categories. Twist applied, Twist approves.

Demand > Supply = your very own bar seat

2010-03-13T06:49:00.000-08:00

The first time I watched a Cubs game from the rooftop of a building across from Wrigley Field, the hot dog came from a Weber charcoal grill and the Old Style came from a styrofoam cooler. I had to stand the wh0le game because all the lawn chairs were taken.

Fast forward 20 years: the tube steaks have become horesradish crusted filet, the Old Style has become Old Vine Zinfindel, and the lawn chairs have become theatre style risers 20 rows deep. The rooftops across from Wrigley now resemble luxurious floating villages of gastronomy in the general vicinity of a baseball game. The people spoke (with their wallets), and the building owners answered.

Supply, meet demand. Three cheers for Adam Smith.

Nowhere is supply and demand more at home than in the world of sports. Want more proof than the Wrigley rooftops? Here you go. How about paying 500 bucks for a permanent season seat at a bar near Fenway Park? You can get one at Jerry Remy’s restaurant. Many members of Red Sox nation poo-poo the idea, but I give it a big thumbs up. Why not? Someone saw a potential area of opportunity and twisted the way people watch sports. Remy’s has already sold a couple hundred seats.

With nary a horesradish crusted filet in sight.

Anyone for a Thin Mint Julep?

2010-03-06T06:52:00.000-08:00

Actually, that would be very inappropriate. But how would you feel about some Do-Si-Does Peanut Thai Chicken Salad?

Every year—and I can never remember when; it just happens—the doorbell rings, and there’s the cutest little dumpling in the world standing there in her Girl Scout uniform, with her order form and dimples, not saying a word, just daring you to order fewer than three boxes. And you know there’s going to be more dimples ringing your bell in a day or two, which means more boxes of cookies. There's death and taxes, and there's Girl Scout Cookies right beside those unassailable certainties.

Their incredible success, over 80 years strong and still crunching, is a testament to tradition, dimples, and cookies. But no organization lasts that long without innovating, and Girl Scouts has also done their fair share of twisting their thinking. One delicious proof point: some of the recipes they’re currently promoting.

Anyone for Samoas Fried Shrimp? How about a Thank You Berry Munch Cranberry Pecan Chicken Salad? I love reading about the ways Girl Scouts have come up with new ways to use their cookies. NPR even caught wind and did a story and taste test, and the recipes passed with flying colors.

You can argue that nothing can touch the joyful gastronimic purity of Thin Mints and an ice cold glass of milk. But maybe you should wait to make that argument til you've had a Tagalongs shake.

If you’re wondering where your next testosterone boost will come from…

2010-03-03T18:27:00.000-08:00

Try buying a new cell phone. Not just any phone, but the coolest, most high-tech smart phone in the market. And start using it, unabashedly, in a very public place.

You could also buy a Porsche 911 with a quadraphonic blaupunkt (the same model Ebby Calvin “Nuke” Laloosh bought with his bonus).

This fascinating article, based on a fascinating study, explores the immense power of expensive things, and the image-driven marketing behind them, to make you feel “strong like a bull.” Plus, you get to learn about Lekking.

Lot of good reasons for marketers and curious people in general to read it.
For me, it’s confirmation that my tube socks and coke-bottle glasses weren’t the only reasons I didn’t get any action in high school. Damn you, chocolate brown Ford Granada!

Being confident, connected, and upbeat can only get you so far

2010-02-28T16:28:00.000-08:00

Despite the horrific job market for teens and twentysomethings, be comforted in knowing that those folks--the millennials, as you might know--are in awesome shape psychologically. They’re confident and self-aware and just gosh darn happy to be here. If you believe the reports, we should all be jealous of them. They are truly the bee’s knees when it comes to being a really excellent generation.

But could they be just a little too laid back? With the extremely high level of convenience that technology affords them, some might even call it lazy. What started with the remote control way back in the day has evolved into speed dialing, spellcheck, and now, The Square.

I like this technological advancement, although I’m not sure I’d use it. I trust my friends to pay me the $5 I lend them at the Dairy Queen. What bugs me is the utter lack of enthusiasm the seller of the Square has for it’s product.

I’m not asking for Billy Mays to come back from the grave, or even the Shamwow guy to step in. I just can’t imagine our hero/narrator being any less excited—interested, even—in the product he’s hawking. Maybe this soothing pitch is what works for the millennials who would be interested in purchasing the Square. Maybe they’re just that happy to be around on this fine day and this soothing pitch is just right.

One word of advice, though, to Mr. Bearded Flannel Square-seller and friends:

The world belongs to the enthusiastic.

And PS, so do the jobs.

The answer to every question you'll ever have

2010-02-23T21:26:00.000-08:00

If the path you’re on seems like the right one, did it happen by chance or intent?

If things go your way, is it because of what you’ve done up until this point in time, or because karma smiled on you at just the right moment?

Does success happen because you worked your butt off, or because you just got some good old fashioned luck?

Can you be a factor can you be in determining how It will all turn out?

The answer to all of the above is an easy one, of course.

Yes.

Chance, intent, diligence, karma, hard work , luck…they all go hand in hand, as inseparable as an Olympic Ice skater and flowing tears. Make friends with them all and It will be fine.

There’s no right way, of course, and you’ll get there in the way that’s right for you. But I can tell you this: trust your instincts, be optimistic and enthusiastic, and look at things differently as often as you can.

Twist the way you approach a challenge or situation. Don’t always take someone else’s word for it. You’ll get run over, physically and emotionally. And once in a while, take five seconds to watch something like this.

Hello. I’m the new proud sponsor of anything you ever liked.

2010-02-21T20:37:00.000-08:00

Now I just need to create a marketing campaign behind it.

With the further splintering of ad dollars into millions of small pieces, the once untouchable, previously big-money world of sponsorships is a prime target for fresh thinking, given it’s potential for low cost potential to reach large numbers of people. Not since Chico’s Bail Bonds stood behind the Bad News Bears have so many interesting partnerships been forged. Here’s two companies who have twisted the way people have always thought about sponsorships.

P&G, "the proud sponsor of moms.” Why not? Who else could doubt the claim, and who else could challenge them on it? Talk about a smart way to speak to a very very big target. Moms break into dozens and dozens of demographic profiles, but psychographically, and putting Wife Swap aside, moms are moms are moms. And it fits into so much they do. Well done, P&G.

On a totally different line of thinking, Prilosec OTC would like to be "the sponsor of everything.” And everyone. You can read about it or check out their digital effort to find 1000 people to become the “official _____ of Prilosec OTC” is really smart. Check out the site.

Now’s your time to get officially sponsored. If you’re a mom, P&G’s already got your back. And if you ever dreamed of being the Official Prilosec OTC baseball team, you better hurry before Morris Buttermaker beats you to it.

Welcome to Facebookland

2010-02-15T12:55:00.000-08:00

Yet another reason why Facebook continues to lead the internet in awesomeness and will likely continue to do so for a very long time.

Actually, you can thank Petesearch for this entry, since that’s where you can find this incredibly intriguing way of dividing up the country via Facebook profiles. Of course, without Facebook, this analysis would be impossible. Amazing to see how deeply Facebook has become intertwined in our lives. And how quickly; seems like I was just marveling about how kids don’t call each other on the phone to make plans anymore, they just text or IM. Now they Facebook each other.

Don’t be surprised if someday, your great great grandchildren are voting for political office via Facebook, obtaining passports (from Facebook) to cross Facebook-designed borders, and arguing with their parents about dating a girl from an area of the world that isn’t compatible with their own Facebook-created land mass.

Gotta go. Just got a new friend request.

Tadpole escapes, becomes a Prince

2010-02-09T17:53:00.000-08:00

How many ideas have you had that didn’t become real?

How many times did you think of something in the middle of the night that would make you rich and famous, but you decided you’d wake up in the morning and write it down, only to just remember something about a cantalope and JD Salinger?

You could ensure that you always remember your ideas like Michael Keaton’s Bill Blazejowski (“I'm an idea man Chuck, I get ideas, sometimes I get so many ideas that I can't even fight them off!”) in the highly underrated “Night Shift,” by dictating all of them into a recording device. But then you have to bring them to life.

And that’s the tough part. How often have you had an idea at work that you knew, that you were 100% certain, would be massively, hugely, rdiculously successful, if only you could sell it up through the internal ranks, and then convince the client of it’s genius, only to have it die somewhere along the way, due to someone’s fear or lack of confidence or shortage of funds or one of 6,438 other reasons great ideas can get killed?

Well, for every tadpole of an idea that you wished you could get swimming, every brilliant thought you’ve ever had between 4-8 beers and/or 1-4 AM that you just couldn’t get off the ground once you could see straight, and for every frenzied, rushing sperm of a germ of a notion you’ve had that couldn’t be fertilized, we present Bloomframe, in video and in words.

I don’t know how they got it done, but this is one of those ideas that seems too smart, too obvious, too we-must-get-this-made to ever actually get made. Someone had a notion, fought for it, pushed for it, found others who loved it and believed in it, and somehow, it got made. That’s the story I want to believe.

Who doesn’t love balconies? Why can’t everyone have one? Now you can. Well done, Bloomframe. The first models are bound for the Netherlands. When it becomes available over here, I’ll take two.

One way to save $4.3 Billion

2010-02-05T04:41:00.000-08:00

From the “Why hasn’t anybody thought of this before?” department (Great Britain branch):

Shatter-proof pint glasses.

As the guys from the Guiness commercials of a few years back would say, “Brilliant!”

Government officials estimate that 2.7 billion pounds, or just over 4 billion dollars US, will be saved in health care costs in “Glassing” incidents. Glassing is pretty much what it sounds like—folks using shards of glass as a weapon. Nothing like too much beer and a nice piece of sharp glass to get the blood flowing.

But some smart and curious Brit thought about things differently, and figured out a way to make the drinking experience safer--and as an added bonus, one of the designs in play, will keep the beer cooler, too.

If they keep thinking this way, who knows how else they’ll make the beer drinking experience better and safer? I’ll tell you one thing:

If I’m the guy who owns the biggest plastic darts factory in England, I’m smiling right now.

A site that’s everything it’s cracked up to be

2010-02-03T05:34:00.000-08:00

Quick, informative, entertaining, functional. Wouldn’t you love for your site to be that way? Or your communications plan? Or your very existence?

These folks have cooked up a quick and fun site that’s all that. It’s a nice smile for a Wednesday morning.

The importance of feeling like an alien

2010-01-31T16:18:00.000-08:00

I just got back from Copper Mountain, Colorado, having spent most of last week there on business (hence the weeklong gap in blog entries). The location was wisely chosen by my client for a reason that’s relevant to his business but not necessary to explain here.

What is relevant is the fact that Copper is extremely far removed from my day to day life, different in many ways:

Ridiculously clean air. The kind you wouldn’t know existed unless you arrived straight from The City. The folks who live there may not know it, but I could feel it, and I was constantly trying to take giant breaths to stock up on what felt like invisible energy.

No cars. Some shuttle buses, no traffic. You can stand in the middle of a snow-packed street for 10 minutes with no danger of getting hit by anything other than an errant snowboarder.

Ridiculously nice people. Not even in Disney World did I meet such happy people. I spent some time in Telluride in the late ‘80’s, and nothing has changed in the 25 years since: people who inhabit these towns live to ski (or snowboard), so they serve pizza or fix roofs or drive shuttle buses so they can spend the rest of their time on the slopes. In the dog-eat-dog big-city world of big business, you have to claw your way to the top. In Copper, a ski lift takes you there.

Copper is hundreds of miles from Chicago, but it felt like I was on a different planet. It was inspiring to be in such an alien environment. It reminded me of the importance of getting away from places in which you usually find yourself. Down the road or across the ocean, find yourself somewhere new. Soon. The air may not be all that much cleaner, but the energy you get will be worth it.

Why a good answer is the best answer

2010-01-24T17:47:00.000-08:00

When I was a cub, one of my first mentors asked me what an Idea was. I probably said something like, “something you think up,” which isn’t necessarily a wrong answer, it just isn’t a very good one.

I’ve had a pretty good response for a while now, something along the lines of “A creative solution to a challenge.” Or even pithier, “A good answer.”

Yes, if a word, image, sound or action does a good job of taking a question or challenge and making it irrelevant, then it’s an answer. And what’s more valuable than that?

Engineers, scientists, doctors, Supreme Court Justices, they’re in the answer business. So are marketers. People pay money to see other people come up with an answer. Fighters answer the bell, batters answer pitchers. Laws answer problems, food answers hunger.

Love them as we may, baristas don’t really answer anything, which is why they may not be as valuable as you think.

Sometimes answers are not just inventive, but cool (I love that kind!) Sometimes they’re not simple.

But always, an answer is an idea. And when it’s a good idea, nothing feels better than coming up a good one. How do you know it’s a good one? I’ll write on that soon. But if you get tingly when you come up with one, it’s a good sign.

PS, If you have a favorite idea you want to share, please post it.

Another reason to have an accident on the autobahn

2010-01-20T21:58:00.001-08:00

This outdoor ad in Germany is the best use of three billboards in a row since I was 10 years old, when we drove through South Dakota in greater anticipation of a drug store than Anton Chigurh did in No Country for Old Men. When we finally got to Wall Drug, it was a bit of a letdown, but I did get a fake snakeskin wallet and a postcard of a jackalope.

This is a wonderful example of using media to it's fullest advantage. Makes a point, makes it in a fresh, extremely, highly memorable way. Did I mention that it's memorable?

The smartest book, per-page, in the history of the world, ever

2010-01-17T20:27:00.000-08:00

You may know about it already, you may have read it in one of your marketing classes, but A Technique For Producing Ideas is a book that’s well worth the small amount of time you’d need to spend reading it.

It’s 48 (large print) pages. It’s so short, you can go here and read the whole thing. But it’s also super cheap, so please buy it and flip through it every once in a while.

Fact is, you may practice his technique already, but James Webb Young was the first guy to think of putting it down on paper.

If you’re ever pressed to come up with an idea—and if you’re not, then you’re probably not doing much more than flipping channels and inhaling cheese balls—then consider Mr. Young’s advice. He may have written it decades ago, but the fact that it’s still being reviewed (and praised) on amazon.com speaks volumes about this little volume’s ability to influence how you think up an idea.

It’s proof that the cleanest, simplest, most obvious ways of thinking about a challenge can sometimes be the best Twists of all.

Radio Gaga

2010-01-14T17:46:00.000-08:00

This is one of the best intersections of social and mainstream media that I’ve ever seen.

Even if you’ve had enough of Miss Germanotta, you can’t help but be entertained, from the three dudes wearing sunglasses and playing the violin all the way through the swelling chorus of random voices singing the…well…chorus.

Nice Twist, to cut together all of the different versions posted by people just like you and me. Well, not me, really, because I don’t have Kanye glasses, play little guitar-looking things, or spin what used to be known as "LP's" on turntables. And while I don’t really love the Lady G, I certainly respect her talent and originality. Plus, I would sincerely like to know what “ rah, rah, ra ah ah, rama, ra ma ma, ga, ga, ooh la la“ means.

Cool is what cool says it is

2010-01-12T16:21:00.000-08:00

Every year when I was Creative Directoring Gatorade, we had our big annual meeting to sell the new crop of commercials to our client. It was always a big show, with lots of amazing ideas presented amazingly well. People brought their A-game because there was a lot at stake; this was work that could spark or squash a career.

The room was always full of ideas that were smack dab on brief. We applied great strategic rigor to everything we presented.

Almost.

There was always one spot that was in the room mostly because we just loved it. It may not have nailed the strategy, or been squarely on one of the assigned briefs. And even with all of the great salespeople we had in that room, we were hard pressed to come up with a good reason for our client to buy it other than “It’s really cool and will make Gatorade that much cooler.” And to their credit, they did buy some of those spots, bless their hearts.

Which brings me to the only Top Ten list I’ll talk about from last year. Top 25, actually. It’s right here. A page full of nothing but Cool Stuff. Go take a look, and I dare you to not be engaged, or inspired, and come away with a smile on your face.

Should you spend $1000 on a pair of sneakers, just because they’re cool? Well,

To be honest, as much as I love Turtle, I’ve never completely understood sneaker collectors, or anyone who’ll drop a grand on a pair of gym shoes. But who says these shoes aren’t as much of a work of art as a painting or sculpture? Not me.

Cool is worth whatever someone says it is. Including you. So go think up something cool.