A great idea in need of resuscitation

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

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

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!

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

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

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.

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

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

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?

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

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

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!

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

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

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

“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

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

"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

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

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!!!!

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

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

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™

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

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.

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.

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

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?

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…

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

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

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.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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.

Use what you got

A great example of telling a great story even if you don’t have one: go to this site, then click on “About.”

I LOVE THIS.

And remember, I’m the guy who wrote the original Keith Jackson-narrated “Origins” commercial for Gatorade, which told the story of how Gatorade was created. Nothing like the power of a true story, right?

But what if you’re a younger brand with little (or no) heritage to talk about?

Go the opposite way. Use it to your advantage. Have fun with it. Let it be part of your attitude. Then your attitude becomes your story.

It’s feckin genius.

Thinking Waaaaaaaay outside the bun

Taco Bell has been successfully thinking outside the bun for a while, with some genuinely funny ads and some genuinely strong business results. Their latest effort is a departure from “If you like Pina Colada” parodies, and it has gone a bit awry.

I’m sure you’ve seen it on TV; they’re telling the true story of Christine Dougherty, who lost 54 pounds with the help of Taco Bell’s Fresco menu. I’m sure someone somewhere in the world in the past several decades quit smoking by jogging sideways and chewing an indigenous tree root. Doesn’t mean it’s a good way to quit smoking.

And apparently, most people think Taco Bell isn’t a real good way to lose weight. According to Zeta Buzz, which mines blogs, message boards and social media postings to measure buzz about a subject, not only has Taco Bell's buzz rating dropped six points after launching the diet, but three of the words most closely associated with Taco Bell and its campaign are now "fat," "stop," and "joke."

Oops.

I really admire Taco Bell for trying something different. The truth is a powerful tool, and Christine's story is compelling. Unfortunately, just because a story is true and powerful, it doesn’t mean that it must be told. Especially when it comes to selling a product.

I’m not napping right now, but I could be.

Thanks to crowdsourcing, I could get someone else to do my work for me today, and then just take a long, peaceful nap. Crowds can do just about anything these days, from Wikiing to Flickring. Crowdspring has brilliantly christened themselves “The world’s largest creative department.”

And now if there’s a question you need answered, you can Aardvark your way there. Not the newest idea in the world, but I like this site because it twists the model so that it seems like a friend to friend system, vs. asking Jeeves or using some impersonal, computerized search engine. You sign up, you ask a question, you quickly get a bunch of answers from real people. I got an answer from an 80-year old chap in London whose personality jumped off the page in all of his wonderfully wry and long-life-lived wisdom. You’re also asked to answer others' questions, too. Quid pro quo, Clarice. I told someone in Miami looking for a romantic restaurant in Chicago to check out Geja’s. Old school, baby! Don’t worry, I made sure he knows he’ll come out smelling like a french fry.

It’s nice to see crowdsourcing being used by people who come to life in the process. It’s not just fulfilling, it’s enjoyable. And I can Aardvark all day long, while others do my work for me via all of the other crowdsroucing sites. In fact, I’m napping right now, as I write this. Well, not really, but I might just take a nap when I‘m done writing this. Highly unlikely, given the fact that I’m a ridiculously unrelenting boss of myself. But I could if I wanted, thanks to crowdsourcing.

By the way, if I was in Asia and wanted to take a nap, I’d go here. Now that's a place to nap.

And if anyone out there needs to know a great place for sushi in Rome, go here…

One result of the economic crisis: Weed you can drink

Is the charge of Red Bull over? Are folks less interested in being a Rockstar and more inclined to hang out with Mary Jane?

Anti-energy drinks have, ironically enough, exploded onto the scene. Several beverage makers are seeing an America that’s tired of running and cramming and overextending, and in great need of slowing down and relaxing. According to the LA Times, advertising agency J. Walter Thompson says these relaxation drinks will be one of the top food trends of 2010.

It started last year with Drank, marketed as a way to “Slow Your Roll.” My favorite is Mary Jane’s Soda, laced with Kava. The reference to marijauna is intentional; there’s no dope in the bottle, but when you drink it you experience the calming effect that Kava produces, which some say is similar to the effects of smoking pot. No news yet on whether they’ll sell M&M’s and french fries and chocolate cake and Doritos to go with it.

I love the word “anti.” You can say it’s a downer, but it’s also a great way to go against trends to find an opportunity. Anything out there that’s rubbing you the wrong way? It could be the basis for a great new idea…

The single best piece of advice for college grads

Here’s a thought for everyone donning a cap and gown in 2010 and hoping to one day not just get married, but stay married:

Smile.

As a study shows, and The New York Times reported, the less people smiled in their yearbook pictures, the more likely they were to later get divorced.

Granted, it’s a “thin slice” study of only 600 people, but it’s one of many related studies, and added up, they create a slice as thick as greek toast.

Another good reminder, as 2010 quickly approaches, that the world belongs to the optimistic. Things may be bad or good, but they will always get better. So much of it depends on how you approach a situation. If you approach it like a yearbook photo, and make sure you’re smiling, when the shutter snaps, you’re on your way.