The Moose Will Provide

I've been meaning to say this for some time.

The final provocation is the setting of New Year's Resolutions, something I don't do. I'm more River than Goal, you see. Just my preference, by the way, not a criticism of those who like goal setting.

Anyway, I have lately found that it is more interesting to believe that The Moose Will Provide

This wisdom comes from the Loose Moose Improv School in Canada. No, I haven't been (yet) but I know a woman who has.

In Improv drama, there's no script and you have to make the scenes up as you go along. Much like life, at least life at its most vivid.

So in Improv training, you learn to stick yourself into situations and trust that the line will come to you. You might tag a player in a game of Freeze Tag. You have to assume her physical posture from the scene, and say a new line that changes the scene. If you want a challenge, you take the position on stage before thinking of your line.

In Calgary, you get lots of practice at this, developing increasing trust that The Moose Will Provide.

For me, that faith has to have a certain spirit behind it to work. It's not a licence for recklessness (As in, "Captain, did you put any fuel in the plane?", "Oh, the Moose Will Provide"). With that caveat, I'd like to put more faith in the Moose and do a little less anxiety about the future.

Or does that count as a New Year's Resolution?

Stuart giving up...

Stuart Henshall is Giving up Traditional Blogging.

I'm seeing signs that blogs are declining in usefulness and utility as they are pushed into activities they are not suited for.

I plan on being a more collaborative contributor. Oh I want to own my own words, and I hope create and nurture new pages to life. However, they shouldn't stop there. For the most part a blog is a static repository while the world is a living organism. I want to breath life into change. Thus I need to open source my approach to writing, sharing, and becoming part of a broader collective intelligence. You simply can't do that with blogs. Oh you can share editing privaledges and blogs are excellent at top down hierarchical communications. So blogs are blasted out into the blogosphere and if you are lucky you are swamped with links and trackbacks. Then posts age and they are forgotten.

It'll be interesting to see where Stuart goes next with this. Sounds like he envisages more of a cross between blog and wiki.

Meanwhile, I would say for myself that there's blogs and then there's what happens in the spaces between the blogs. The stuff that happens in the spaces - not the comments or the pings, but the thinking and sense of connection of ideas - doesn't show on the blog, but it's there. If Stuart can pioneer a way to make the spaces more electric, that'll be cool.

In closing, Stuart asks

So will you too find a new form of blogging next year? How will your blogging change? I'd be interested to know.

I've learnt that I am not much good at predictions, but I hope that my blog will surprise me next year.

Feral worker

Cathy Moore just started a blog - Authentic Voice - and linked to me. Which led me to find and enjoy her The Feral Manifesto. Snippet:

NOT FOR ME the cold coffee, the windows that don't open, the "inspirational" posters, the guy who talks too loudly on the phone, the lack of bathroom reading material, the smelly microwave, the 15-minute break, the timesheet, the need to wear shoes. The chocolate donuts were pretty good, though.

NOT FOR ME the fear of outsourcing. I am the outsource.

I AM the feral worker. In the still, black night, hear my cry.

And here's a bit more from elsewhere in Cathy's blog, arguing the case for authentic voice...

We write in Corporate Drone out of fear. We try to sound impressive because we're afraid of being powerless. We hide behind complexity and buzzwords because we're afraid the truth isn't enough.

But times are changing. Thanks in part to the web, our customers are more savvy and skeptical than ever. They don't have the patience for Corporate Drone. They want the truth, and they want it delivered with respect and a minimum of fuss.

If we can also show some personality, all the better. Businesses can't compete on price and features alone anymore—we need to attract customers emotionally, too. And the only way to make an emotional connection is to sound like a human being.

Welcome to Blogging, Cathy. Consider yourself aggregated.

Bzzz...

Christopher Carfi rants against BzzAgent. I have to admit I'm inclined to agree with him although I don't want to knock the verve and sincerity of those who are keen BzzAgents.

I think he's right to pick on the slightly cliquey vocab used on the BzzAgent site as a bit off-putting.

I can't put my finger on exactly why I don't like BzzAgents. It could be that it seems to support enthusiasm for enthusiasm's sake... there's something contrived about it that puts me off. Call me naive - you won't be the first - but I wish that businesses would just focus on doing a great job so that word-of-mouth takes care of itself without this kind of programming.

Tsunami

So slowly getting back in the saddle after the Christmas hiatus.

Glad that Evelyn has survived the tsunami. The other blogger I'm concerned about is James Cherkoff - I know he was off to Sri Lanka for Christmas, so my fingers are crossed for him.

As Hugh says of Evelyn's posts

Wow. By bloggingg standards, this is huge stuff. We're more used to a steady diet of "Upgraded to Movable Type v3.14 yesterday" or whatever.

ShardsO'Glass

Take a look at ShardsO'Glass (thanks to Seth Godin for the link).

This sharp satire reminds me of the dissonance I mentioned in my recent post on cold medicines.

I find it fascinating that some corporations seem like players near the end of a game of Naked Twister. Image is going Left-Foot-Green whilst Truth is Right-Leg-Red.

I wonder what it's like trying to have authentic conversations in these places? Still, you must get to tangle with some accomplished players from the marketing world...

The Gift

Thanks to Rob Paterson for pointing to this. Got me near to crying.

Long tail

Chris Anderson's new Long Tail blog is shaping up as a great read. Today he quotes David Foster Wallace's A Supposedly Fun Thing I'll Never Do Again

TV is not vulgar and prurient and dumb because the people who compose the audience are vulgar and dumb. Television is the way it is simply because people tend to be extremely similar in their vulgar and prurient and dumb interests and wildly different in their refined and aesthetic and noble interests.

(If you've not come across the term "Long Tail", it's the chunk of any market where the small players operate.. Richardon writes about how it's an overlooked source of opportunity)

How does branding really happen? (1)

Among the comments on one of Hugh's posts I found this gem from Ben Wharton (who doesn't seem to have a website)(My emphasis)

As someone who has seen the most basic screw-ups occur when outside consultants, especially in the IT industry, are brought in to bring a "New Way of Thinking" via a "New Way of Working" promoting "A New Way of Being" into an established business culture, you're staring down the double barrel of the most basic of issues.

While there are generalisations to be made about systems, it's the multitude of exceptions that describe the realities of an individual system.

I like this statement. And it's why I think so much of what is said about branding, especially in guides on how to do it, is of such questionable value.

I think what happens is that brands emerge out of the soup. After the event, a large number of Alpha Males lay competing claims to having invented them (success has many parents, failure is an orphan). As the history is written, many happy accidents are reinvented as the results of smart goal setting and thorough planning.

(I used to be a planner in ad agencies; every planner I ever met acknowledged that our real speciality was post-hoc rationalisation of creativity).

All this creates the Myth of the Goal. A story is told that suggests the only way forward for any grown-up organisation is to idealise a future state, compare it with a present state, and do the gap analysis. As Ben so shrewdly observes, that analysis of the present state will very likely fail to capture the multiple, apparently small, details that make any organisation what it is.

Nothing's perfect, and such an approach has its uses, but I've become increasingly wary of idealised visions of the future, and failed acknowledgement of the present, which often serve to depress us and lower our energy and enthusiasm.

For some corporate types, the removal of the Goal Comforter may cause a good deal of anxiety. But for most people, I believe the choice to step more deeply into the present can be a source of creativity and satisfaction. Which raises energy levels, which makes stuff happen.

This is, of course, a far from complete argument. Think of it as a small piece and join it to something else if you like. I'll be saying more shortly.

Meanwhile, if you're Ben Wharton, please take a hat tip... and could I persuade you to start blogging?

Procrastination

I'm a terrible procrastinator. Or perhaps I should say I'm a very skilled one.

For the last couple of days I've been feeling a bit gloomy. And anxious about a variety of little unclosed loops in my world - little glitches in the flat, unrun errands, resolving the existential puzzles of the meaning of life etc.

Yesterday, I gritted my teeth and closed one. The VAT return. This is one of those things with a high dread-to-effort ratio: I can spend hours feeling gloomy at the prospect yet it usually only takes an hour to do it - my record keeping is pretty good. Yesterday it took a couple of hours as it meant clearing all the paperwork from while I was away.

All the other loops in my life remain as open as ever. Yet today, I notice I feel so much happier. I don't why, but it often surprises me that clearing one simple task can change the whole way I think about all the others...

Dance

Alan Moore's post - The Dance of Change- is just a short quote from The Tomorrow People:

Future-faced brands are not brands that are omnipotent, or consistent in the traditional sense that brands are consistent or standardized across all territories, but rather that they accommodate the personal, the individual.

Nice short post with at least two attractive ideas in it. First, I like the metaphor of dance for change as it suggests interaction, flow and giving/taking advancing/yielding between people. Second, let's get away from the obsession with consistency in brands; you gotta have mutation and diversity to thrive.

Scoble's firestorm

I didn't realise when I praised Robert Scoble the other day that I was stepping into a little internet firestorm. A couple of burning embers can be found in the comments and you'll find plenty more on the Scoble blog.

Some have focussed on the idea Scoble described and picked plenty of holes in it. Others are understandably massively sceptical about whether the Microsoft behemoth can ever really adopt open source.

I'll just reaffirm that it's great that this employee is supported in being this open about his thinking. And I think it's a straw in the wind: businesses are more porous than ever - something that far too much branding ignores in favour of simplistic messaging.

And I'll fillet this from Scoble's own argument

I'm very fortunate to work for a company that encourages me to try things. In public. When humans try things occassionally they'll fail... And don't think Microsoft is alone. Silicon Valley is scattered with such courtyards. The failures. Oh, the failures! But out of those failures comes Apple. Comes Intel. Comes Google. Comes eBay. Comes Cisco. Comes Yahoo. Yeah, everyone knows the big successes, but really, it's the failures that teach us things.

Yes, my idea was wacky. Yes, it is a stupid, idiotic, naive idea. But I learned a lot. In all of the discussion there was more product feedback about music players turned over to the world than would have been gained from 20 customer feedback sessions.

So, the stupid idea got you all to talk. Is that a bad thing?

Construction works

I'm about to start upgrading MovableType (the software behind this blog). So please be patient with any glitches that occur... and cross your fingers for me.

UPDATE: Err, I'm putting off the evil moment while I get a bit clearer about how it deals with Comment Spam. Might try in the fallow period between Christmas and New Year.

No escaping conversation

Hugh observes

Writing about marketing without losing all self-respect is harder than it looks.

Couldn't have put it better myself, so, there, I've let Hugh do it for me.

He does so in the context of some amusing and well-argued feedback about the Markets as Conversations idea. Brian Moffatt commented on one of Hugh's posts:

I haven't got a fucking clue what you're talking about, to be honest about it, other than understanding that people are basically psychotic, so there's a basis for a conversation there, I suppose, but I really don't want to have a conversation about the shit I buy, and I wouldn't have to if everything thrown on the market wasn't beta quality in the first fucking place. I'd be fucking amazed if everyone stopped presuming that I want a relationship. I don't. Any more than I want messages. I want anonymous sex. No talking. It's always amazing and renews my faith in our species more than any product and or service, and if you and the business model Train set don't get this, call me and we'll talk.

Hmm, I think I get the point but then again, here Brian is having a conversation about his desire to avoid one.

That word relationship is another one that causes confusion in marketing arguments. Partly because admen are fond of pretending they can make us fall in Love with their ideas. No wonder people resist that kind of thinking and that kind of relationship.

However, I might well say, in moments of exasperation "I don't want a relationship to (say) British Telecom". As soon as I say that with any feeling, of course I am putting myself in relationship to them. A relationship of antipathy.

And if I want something to change, even if I want to get rid of them, I have got to relate to them somehow to achieve my goal.

So I fear that Brian is stuck with having relationships of some kind with people and organisations he might prefer to avoid. Now what sort of relationship he and they want... well that's a different matter. I guess they'll have to talk about it....

Now that's what I call a budget airline

Thanks to Stefan for this:

A no-frills budget airline brand is sending shivers down Romania's flagship carrier, Tarom. This airline is so cost-conscious that it didn't even bother to come up with an entirely original identity. Aping the more famous JetBlue, it is named Blue Air and doesn't give a nickel on subtleties like brand - what they currently use for this purpose is a pitiful ersatz, as far as their web site and radio ads are concerned.

They do, however, manage to cut prices by a whopping 50 to 70%, and that's what really seems to count. If they don't flop or get acquired, I hope to fly them once and see what kind of travel experience they provide.

Clueless?

Rex Hammock tells us

One of my lovemarks is suing one of my cluetrain sources. No matter who wins in court, I know ultimately who will win.

'nuff said.

Signing your soul away

Thanks to Boing Boing for quoting Douglas:

Although I've spent a fair bit of law school debating various aspects of what people can (or should be able to) bind themselves to with clickwrap and shrinkwrap licenses, the one fact that everyone acknowledges is that nobody ever reads the fine print. Here's some truly classic fine print on the receipt from my local video store, circa last Halloween.

Scoble and the way ahead

Forget Lovemarks. If you want to see the future of marketing, just read Robert Scoble, and specifically his latest Open Letter to Bill Gates. (For those who've not come across him, Scoble is a blogger who went to work for Microsoft on the marketing side.)

Here's the intro, but if you've time to read the rest it would be worth it.

Hi Bill. I've been thinking about how to make Windows Media cool. You know, cooler than wearing white headphone cords.

Open source the product development.

Yeah, you're gonna be hearing a lot about "open source this" and "open source that" in 2005. Open source has become a metaphor for things done in public view with public input. Actually, you're a leader here. Check out Channel 9. It's the first step along the road to open source marketing. But back to the point.

We have five months to come out with a great new set of music players and get a great marketing campaign going. Why is that? It's called back to school. If we don't get something going by June then we lose another generation to the iPod. Do you want to let that happen?

How many companies today would tolerate, much less encourage, this kind of dialogue between an employee and the boss? I don't know - but I'd bet a few quid a lot more successful companies will be doing so in future.

Whose authenticity?

Freddie Daniells also writes about Hijacking Authenticity. He worries that the idea of Authenticity is being hijacked to include tree-huggers and exclude others.

Brands such as Hummer, Harley Davidson, Viz are unapologetic about who or what they are and have thrived. I may not buy these products but they are as authentic as hell.

It's a good point.

The thing is, I think it's the nature of language that individual words are constantly being used by different people to mean different things. I've pointed this out about the word "brand" in another post. At the moment, I prefer to go with the flow and acknowledge that the same word does mean different things to different people. And for some, authenticity is synonymous with ideas about sustainability and community. I used to try harder to legislate for what words should mean but lately I've decided it's better to acknowledge ambiguity as a way of admitting more people to the conversation.

Having written a lot about authenticity, I've become a bit warier about getting lured into naming what is and isn't authentic as if I'm an objective observer. I'm not. So - for me - authenticity is more about whether I'm representing myself accurately in how I talk to and about the world.

To the extent I do want to label other people or brands as authentic, on the whole I'd prefer to focus on specific behaviours. So some of what the boss of Ryanair says, which can be very blunt, has a refreshing smack of authenticity. I see lots of problems with budget airlines but I do appreciate that smack of reality they introduced to a business that was utterly mired in complacent fantasies about the luxury of air travel.

One aspect of talk about authenticity that troubles me is when people create impossible ideals, as in some magic list of the ten qualities of an authentic leader, which turn out to be an impossibly virtuous job specification that no flesh-and-blood human being could live up to. In a way, this sets up just the kind of false idealism that makes so much branding boring or somewhat offensive.

Brand Honesty

Freddie Daniells has been thinking about Brand Honesty and related matters. (He's kind enough to reference me in his post). Here's the context:

"Marketing is in crisis" - so said Jeff Randall, the BBC business editor, at the recent Annual Summit of the Marketing Society. "How can marketing remain relevant?" the marketing press asks. We all know there are problems, but what can we do about them?

The recommended steps invariably include greater alignment with the business, more focus on ROI, 'learning the language of the CFO' and doing a better job of 'marketing' marketing.

These are undoubtedly important steps, but assume that there is nothing wrong with marketings output - we simply need to better justify what is done and dress it up with business friendly words.

This article looks to challenge that view. I want to show that marketing is changing more fundamentally and that a broader response is needed.

I agree with Freddie, I'm bored of that old mantra about marketing needing to learn "the language of the boardroom". I'd like to see some more fundamental changes. Freddie makes a series of good points, so the whole piece is well worth a read. I particularly like his argument that we need more risk-taking and genuine innovation instead of loads of play-safe line extensions.

Advertising and colds

While my body is clearly back in the UK, portions of my brain are still scattered in various time zones between here and New Zealand. It's been weird coming back to London after more than 6 weeks, straight from nearly-the-longest-day to nearly-the-shortest.

Somewhere in this confusion, I found myself astonished by UK cold treatment advertising. (Strange things grab my attention in my current state).

In New Zealand, my Brit friends and I would chuckle at the gaucheness of the lcoal TV advertising. But at least most of it was straightforward, even if it lacked the so-called creative flair that allegedly makes British ads superior.

But I wonder what a price we pay for this kind of sophistication? Yes, that's sophistication, from the same lexicographers that gave you sophistry.

Exhibit A: TV ad for Lemsip Max Strength (Clip at DavidReviews). Synopsis: Woman at office worries that male colleage is too ill with the flu to complete some profoundly important project. Male reveals that his use of Lemsip has transformed him from red-nosed death's-door loiterer into suave executive. He even has time to invite said female colleaugue on a date. She is unable to resist a man who can bounce back so readily from illness. Obviously, this medicine does wonders for the production of pheromones as well as curing the flu.

Exhibit B: Beechams All-in-one. Synopsis: Charicature native tribesman tries a variety of unlikely cold-cures, like putting mustard on his chest. Surprise, surprise, they don't work. Reasurring male voiceover offers us Beechams All-in-one, which gives the flu "the all-in-one". The neat thing about that phrase is that it can imply fantastic results but actually not really mean anything.

Both these ads seem to imply through tone and execution that these products are a virtually a cure for colds/flu, which of course they are not.

Now I see that online, Beechams are more circumspect. For example, with beechamsfightback, and the "Cold and Flu Council" sponsored by them. Take a look at the Six Ways to Fight Back. Nary a mention of the product which, on TV, appears to be some kind of miracle cure.

I suppose we could appreciate the integrity of this advice. But the contrast between the multimillion pound ads and this relatively cheap website is telling.

Meanwhile, over at Lemsip the Expert Advice includes (my italics)

Well as you'd expect, we can't give you an instant cure, but there are some suggestions we can make that might help you get better sooner.

Get plenty of rest — conserve your energy for fighting off your illness
Eat lots of vitamin C — fruit and vegetables will help to boost your immune system
Drink plenty of fluids — it is important to keep yourself hydrated. A Lemsip hot drink can help you
Caffeine can help — Lemsip capsules contain caffeine to stop you feeling tired
Use tissues, not a handkerchief — you'll help spread fewer germs
Put your hand over your mouth when you cough or sneeze.

Note the expert priority given to rest. Yet the TV work supports the idea that all you need do when you get a cold is take Lemsip and get straight back to productivity and indeed fecundity.

Of course, they only run these ads because at some level they work. People are willing to believe in, or at least associate with, the fantasies. I don't want to lay all the blame at the door of the pharmaceutical companies. But I'd like to see how they justify their allocation of marketing resources, other than the need to make a buck.

I sincerely hope that this kind of incongruity between glib ads and matter-of-fact reality is treated with greater scepticism in future. To put it mildly.

I also wonder if there's an opportunity here for a brand that tries the innovative strategy of levelling with us, not just on the website but in the ads? Or maybe such a brand isn't wasting its time with advertising in the first place?

Maybe Marc and Tom could come up with some creative that tells the truth and makes that sexy?

Bonus Link: Justin Quirk reviews another Lemsip ad for the Guardian:

I hate Steve and Lemsip propagating the idea that whenever you're (genuinely) sick you're at risk of losing your job. Enough people are stressed and insecure at work, without Nazi-boss behaviour being further normalised.

Marc and Tom

I just watched the online vid, styled as a public service announcement, for the advertsing creative skills of Marc and Tom.

Thousands of advertising creatives are out of work... they roam the streets, searching for opportunities - but finding few

It's a funny spoof by two out-of-work creatives, ending with the plea

Hire them, they can't do anything else

Actually, Marc and Tom's effort is a nice ironic comment on the business. I don't suppose irony qualifies them for Lovemark status though...

Welcome back to junk mail

On my return home after 6 weeks, a mountain of mail awaited me. I was able to recycle over 75% of it without more than cursory inspection. A small but poignant reminder of the extraordinary wastefulness of marketing.

Jetlagged in Singapore

I'm on my way back to Blighty, overnighting here in Singapore.

It's 6am apparently, but I am deep in jetlag and wouldn't like to vouch for this.

A very long flight to wintry London in prospect this morning. Still, I've earmarked a few good movies to watch on the seat back entertainment of Singapore Airlines.

To be honest, I'm not looking forward to London. I kinda fell in love with New Zealand and I'm missing it!

UPDATE 8.30am. At the airport I see that David Weinberger is in town today doing a workshop on Conversational Marketing. Dang, I wish I'd known about that or I'd not be flying out today!

! or ?

I thought some more about the entertaining David Weinberger post I referenced yesterday. I love the central message about "!" or "?. I also realise that I can be pretty "!" in this space, and some of my favourite bloggers give quite a bit of "!" too. Please feel free to translate any rants here into a polite invitation to dialogue.

Is your future in the present?

... a question prompted by Chris Corrigan's excellent story, About Seeing. Chris relates how the experience of facilitating Open Space created a vision for the future. Something about this story really touches me.

What's the internet about?

David Weinberger on top form reporting on a blogging conference:

Reduced Version of last night:

Michael Turk: The Internet is great for getting your message out.

Joe Trippi: The Internet is great for enabling people to connect with one another.

Reduced Reduced Version

Turk: Messages.

Trippi: Conversations.

Reduced Reduced Reduced Version

Tu: !

Tr: ?

Ill-informed thoughts about the publishing business

Robert Scoble's inspired idea to create a book on Corporate Blogging in a largely transparent way prompted me to think about the publishing business. Robert is planning to auction the book rights on eBay, which seems a creative way to shake up the conventional way of doing things.

My own very limited experience of the publishing business, coupled with a few anecdotes from published friends, do not quality me as any kind of expert. So please view the following half-baked idea in that light and feel free to point out the glaring errors and misrepresentations.

The impression I have is that many publishers operate in a formulaic way. They adopt books that fit a specific category and market them generically. Books are titled to fit neatly into the buying categories of libraries, because that more-or-less ensures a certain minimum number of orders of an initial hardback edition. An edition priced (high) to break even fairly soon. Not much incentive to try to popularise a book with a fresh approach.

I get the impression that a lot of publishers are good at getting books typeset and printed. In days of yore, this was perhaps a more complex task, but not any more. Where they're not so great is at innovative marketing of books. A formula is followed: take few risks, knock out an expensive hardback. Expect poor sales but aim to break even on even meagre turnover. In the unlikely event it takes off, knock out a cheaper paperback and hope for a jackpot.

Perhaps this stereotype is a bit harsh, and probably applies more to authors in the long tail than to blockbuster writers.

But I don't see a ton of innovative marketing from publishers. So now that technology makes the design and printing more accessible, it's fair to question: what value does a publisher add?

The short answer is, a publisher will give you an advance to write the book in the first place. The fact (according to Robert) that most authors don't exceed their advance suggests that publishers are not very good at exceeding their clients expectations!

I don't think these difficulties will apply to Robert's book, and I don't suppose he needs to make his task any more complicated. Still, it would be fun if he could find time to try something like this, instead of auctioning to a publisher...

Sell (or I suppose auction) the rights in small percentages, so that bloggers themselves can afford to participate. After all, as evangelists bloggers might have a higher degree of faith in the title's success and/or more incentive to support it than your average conventional publisher. So you might get a bigger advance and enlist an army of promoters to boot. And there's some pretty good PR talent lurking out in the blogosphere.

Given that Robert is giving his share of the royalties to charity, you could also allow investors to take a stake on behalf of the same cause if they like. I'd be tempted to take that option. Then I'd could feel really atruistic about hyping the resulting book.

I suppose another twist would be to reserve a percentage of the stakes to dole out to those who collaborate most helpfully in the creation of the book, again with the option of donating to charity.

Too complicated? Too simplistic? Probably. But it would be fun if it worked.

Canadian disguise

Thanks to Aleah's blog for pointing to Traveling abroad? Disguise yourself as Canadian

For $24.95, T-shirtKing.com offers the "Go Canadian" package, full of just the kind of things an American traveler can use to keep a vacation free of U.S. politics.

There's a Canadian flag T-shirt, a Canadian flag lapel pin and a Canadian patch for luggage or a backpack. There's also a quick reference guide -- "How to Speak Canadian, Eh?" -- on answering questions about Canada.

Myths of creativity

Evelyn has done a handy summary of The Six Myths of Creativity, based on an article in Fast Company. Check it out if you have a coupla mins to spare.

Makes lots of sense to me and aligns with my mantra about relationships before ideas. I'll quote myself for once

I've witnessed quite a few businesses doing brainstorming and other creativity sessions on awaydays/offsites. If they're lucky, they have an exciting day... then they return to their offices, the adrenalin rush long past, and revert to their normal, much less inspired, ways of working together. Sure, they went somewhere and had a few ideas. But they haven't really changed the way they relate to each other.

It's by creating more trusting relationships, allowing more thoughts to be shared and risks taken, that you get not just ideas but an atmosphere in which ideas are generated.

I'd add that - like the prof in the Fast Company piece - I favour a broader definition of creativity. One that recognises that sincere praise of a creative act is, itself a creative act, an action which fosters and supports continued effort and risk-taking. The principles of Improv provide a pretty good framework for viewing the creative process as an intrinsically satisfying, collaborative adventure.

Princes Leia's expanding breasts

If you can dream - and not make dreams your master Kipling

Apparently, if you compare the Princess Leia doll produced after the original Star Wars movie circa 1978 and the ones out today, there's a difference. In the intervening years, her bust size has tripled. Meanwhile, the bodies of Luke Skywalker and Han Solo have mutated from kinda normal to those of bodybuilders.

This according to an article pinned to the wall in the gym I'm using here in Nelson, taken from the Herald, I can't find it online.

The piece also cites research on Playboy centrefolds over the years. Apparently, just as the image of the ideal woman has got slimmer, so the dimensions of real women have got larger. An interesting case of the ideal and the real drifting further and further apart.

The article referenced The Adonis Complex, a book which focuses on how men are now suffering from a range of disorders due to their inability to match up to the new ideals of how their bodies should look.

It's interesting how this phenomenon has occurred - how ideals are set up that instead of inspiring us may just depress us. Some people sell the ideals, others buy them.

This is something Greedy Girl and David Burn at AdPulp have been kicking around. (They reference the campaign for Dove Soap, which uses somewhat less perfect images of women - though still hardly representative of the full cross-section)

In my comment there, I say that an aspect of marketing that bothers me is the relentless peddling of impossible ideals - though of course the public plays its part by buying into them. I suspect that there are some good opportunities for brands to get a bit more real with us. It seems to me that this is what the budget airlines have done so effectively in the airline business. Maybe Dove has managed to some degree in the beauty business.

Of course, such a transition will not be easy for some industries as David points out in a comment here. My own hunch, and hope, is that the net fosters conversations that start to eat away at implausible brand ideals...

Write your own story

Dave Pollard keeps a great blog. I enjoyed this post on what he's doing to "be the change" in his life. Sets a pretty high standard.

The new voice of Britain... Adam Curry

My hosts here have just connected to Broadband. Woo-hoo! First thing I do is pick up Adam Curry's latest podcast. (Podcast = online radio show in mp3 format) While I've been down under, Adam's moved to Blighty and it is really good to hear his upbeat impressions. Makes the prospect of returning home more attractive.

No sooner does he get to the UK than he's rescuing dogs from America. And he even thinks the trains are great!

If I lived anywhere near Guildford I'd be down the Starbucks (where he's currently uploading his podcasts each day) and say welcome to Britain.

The rules have changed

Hugh at gapingvoid has been on top form with his series on the Chanel No 5 movie/ad. Funniest of all are some of the comments defending the ad.

As Hugh says, the rules have changed...

Mussel Inn

Up in Golden Bay, I really liked the Mussel Inn. I laughed at the way the owners deter the use of cell phones, as shown in this picture of the noticeboard by the front door.

(Picture taken - at obvious personal risk - on my Orange C500)

I guess I like organisations that have a bit of attitude, instead of just spouting homilies about customer service. The homebrewed beer is extremely tasty too.

Mindful Learning

I borrowed a great book from my host in Golden Bay. Ellen Langer's The Power of Mindful Learning. She intelligently challenges some of the assumptions made about how we learn - assumptions I'd summarise as being about rote learning and "paying attention".

She looks at how offering rewards, classifying activities as "work" and promising tests can all conspire to reduce - rather than enhance - the efficiency of learning. There are multiple examples of the value of encouraging multiple perspectives as a way of improving engagement. Right up Evelyn's street I'd think.

One of many entertaining anecdotes was about a university professor who departed from the standard practice of recruiting research subjects with fees. He got his assistant to walk the streets of New York with a billboard announcing that today, people could participate in Professor so-and-so's research for free. And got lots of volunteers. This is a trivial but amusing example of why marketers might be interested in this book.

Corporate identity theft

Very interesting post by Tim Kitchin: Corporate Identity Theft

Other voices

It seems that some of my recent posts have stirred up some controversy. I notice I have mixed feelings... sure I like the attention but in some ways being in an echo chamber was easier.

Anyway, here are a few links to some interesting posts which are a bit of a pushback to what you may have read here and hereabouts.

Evelyn Rodriguez writes an Open Letter to the Lunatic Fringe of Marketing. That sounds quite harsh at first sight although Evelyn is trying to build bridges. She points to parts of Lovemarks that sound more "Cluetrainy" and suggests the author is trying to start a quiet revolution - by wooing and coaxing. It's an interesting angle though I don't find the tone of Lovemarks wooing or coaxing.

She also suggests that maybe we're giving Lovemarks too much attention. Which I often think is true. Still, I think it's good that a few people have done a pushback against Lovemarks being cited (by Tom Peters) as the biz book of the half-decade. I also suspect (can't prove) that a few of us here are only articulating what quite a lot of others are thinking. I don't think Lovemarks is a as mainstream as Evelyn does.

And yes, Evelyn, maybe it's time to put my attention elsewhere. Though if others choose to comment or ping me on the subject, I may choose to engage with them.

David Burn asks Lovemarks, Godmarks, What's the Diff He focuses on Hugh at GapingVoid in particular. I tend to agree with David that brands will always be with us; it's what we do in the name of branding that matters.

Mark at ForwardMarkets - Marketing is as Marketing Does - says I and others are "trying to eviscerate the status quo in order to have themselves or at least their ‘marketing theology of the moment’ be the replacement." I've never been a big fan of the status quo thought I'm not quite sure what exactly Mark thinks the status quo is. I don't think I'd be very happy as a hellfire preacher but I recognise I do have my moments.

Anyway, I think there's been some value in the debate.

Away

It's sunny out and I'm off to Golden Bay (north end of the South Island in NZ) for two days. Expect no blogging. And my apologies in advance if the comment spammers squat here while I'm out.

Dinosaurs?

Thanks to Tony Goodson (via Tom Peters) for this:

"Managers are the dinosaurs of our modern organizational ecology. The Age of Management is finally coming to a close. The need for overseers, surrogate parents, scolds, monitors, functionaries, disciplinarians, bureaucrats, and lone implementers is over, while the need for visionaries, leaders, coordinators, coaches, mentors, facilitators, and conflict resolvers is steadily increasing, pressing itself upon us. ... Nearly unnoticed, a far-reaching organizational transformation has already begun, based on the idea that management as a system fails to open the heart or free the spirit. This revolution is attempting to turn inflexible, autocratic, static, coercive bureaucracies into agile, evolving, democratic, collaborative, self-managing webs of association."— The End of Management, Kenneth Cloke & Joan Goldsmith

Tony adds a few thoughts of his own which I found interesting.

Marketing morals

Tom Asacker expresses his frustration with the marketing profession citing the thought that marketing is the devil. In particular, he takes exception to US Army advertising by sponsoring sports matches.

But don’t you think that the adulteration of culture with persuasive marketing has gone too far when the US Armed Forces starts appropriating cultural events and symbols - like NASCAR and the NFL - to persuade vulnerable teenagers to join up and get their asses blown off.

It kicked off an interesting discussion there and I posted this comment

Tom, I share your frustration with the marketing trade.

I'd like to close the cop-out argument that says if you criticise manipulative ads you automatically imply that customers are idiots. Even the smartest of us get hoodwinked and that doesn't excuse hoodwinking.

Second, I am depressed by most if not all forms of image-making by association. Coke sponsors sports to give it the patina of... sporty healthiness. Sounds like the US Army is doing something similar (obviously I've not seen the ads here in London).

Partly I just think it's such a terrible waste of human energy to be so busily dressing things up instead of telling it like it is. (And yes there is a line between dramatising a real argument and distracting the audience by changing the subject.)

Sid puts a different perspective on the US Army message. If the Army wants to recruit on the nobility of serving the country, it would be good for them to say so, as dramatically as they like. But sponsoring football... well it all sounds rather indirect to me.

It's a bit like kids at school hanging out with the beautiful people, in the hope of some kind of reflected glory. I dunno, but if the US Army can't stand up for itself and give it to us straight, it's a bit worrying.

Scoble's new book

I just love the way Robert Scoble is planning to write his new book on corporate blogging. Do the whole thing in a blog with his co-author, including all negotiations about money, and auction the rights on eBay. Try to read the whole entry, it's inspiring.

The B Word

It seems to me a lot of confusion and irritation about branding, and whether it's good or not, arises from different meanings people attribute to the word. (Christine Arden of allaboutbranding and DNA Design in Auckland made this point to me last week and inspired me to write this.)

I don't want to bore you with linguistic deckchairs, though that may be the effect of this post. And I'd like to avoid telling you which definition is right, because it's hardly my place to do so.

First, there was Brand as trademark, and that was simple enough.

Then the marketing boys got excited and started to create bigger ideas of what a brand was through things like advertising, design etc. Hence brand-as-idealised-image. Not to be confused with what we consumers laughingly call reality.

This was most prominent in the commercial world, which means that for many people, brand-as-image became synonymous with brand-as-giant-con-trick perpetrated by unscrupulous manipulators. These people, understandably, get irate when anyone talks about Oxfam or the Catholic Church as a brand.

Although a fourth definition of brand would include all such organisations. This, the broadest definition, is brand-as-shorthand-for-ideas people have about people, organisations or things.

Where there is a lot of mischief is when people slip artfully from one definition to another. Thus they start with the broad definition and pay tribute to how consumers now control brands. Then proceed to talk about the branding-as-ideal work they do as if it controls the whole thing.

Personally, I favour the broadest definition but also still feel a bit uneasy talking about worthy causes as brands, simply because the word still carries the baggage from the more crass commercial attempts at branding.

Is this helpful or are you bored yet?

Singapore Girl and fortune vs formula

Over at FusionBrand, Nick Wreden reviews Asian Branding, a book by Ian Batey, creator of the Singapore Girl advertising. Whatever you think of it, it is one of those very rare campaigns that has endured, having been around for 30 years.

I liked the story of how Batey won the account in the first place, on the strength of a track record as... a failed restauranteur.

The board of directors asked him: “You have never run a business before, so why should we trust you to competently run our large, complex advertising business across continents?”

“I was stumped. I didn’t have a rational answer,” he writes. “As a kind of knee-jerk reaction I blurted out, ‘Just give me a 12-month contract and if I don’t perform to your satisfaction in that time, I’ll rebate you all the commission that I’ve earned from the airline.’”

Batey got the business. And he admits that “even today, I still shake my head in awe at the guts of those 1972 airline decision-makers who entrusted a tiny team of youngsters to crusade their global advertising battle, rather than taking the safe route with a large, experienced world agency."

Nick obviously loves this book and resonates with its theme of great things to come from the Asian nations. I was also interested in his one caveat:

the book is flawed by an unapologetic yearning for the days when creative giants like Ogilvy, Burnett and Bane walked the earth and CEOs bowed low before the god of “great advertising.” Success, in his mind, are “reliant on the sharpness of an advertiser’s 3Fs: the game is Fast track, Flexibility and Flair.” What about customer relationships, sustainability or, heaven forbid, profitability?

I agree, the advertising-led days are behind us. I think it's often the case that people can be hugely effective and successful yet not quite articulate the reasons for their success or give a true guide to anyone following in their stead. And I love the way Batey won the Singapore account; business success is not really the dead logical process it is sometimes presented as.

Zanon and The Take

I've not been following Naomi Klein's activities very closely, but was fascinated to read her latest email.

For those of you who have seen our documentary, The Take, the Zanon factory, and Argentina’s wider movement of worker-run companies will be very familiar.

For those of you who haven’t, this new movement of some 15,000 workers in almost 200 democratic workplaces is building hope and a concrete economic alternative in the rubble of Argentina’s disastrous experiment with orthodox neoliberalism in the 1990s.

Recovered companies are run by assembly: one worker, one vote. In most of them, workers have decided that everyone should receive the same salary. They are proving the viability of an economy run on an entirely different value system, and they are growing.

In the past year, Zanon has increased its workforce from 300 to 450: a 50% increase. What multinational corporation or national government could boast of such a dramatic rise in decent-paying employment in the middle of an economic crisis?

And Zanon has cultivated a deep and mutual relationship with the surrounding community. For 20 years, the poor neighbourhood of Nueva España, across the highway from the factory, has been asking the provincial government for a health clinic. Zanon workers took a vote earlier this year, and in 3 months built and opened a brand new community health facility.

Now the Zanon factory is under threat of police occupation, and Klein is supporting a global petition to support them.

At face value, the Zanon story impresses and inspires me. What a refreshing change from the tales of greed and excess we're used to hearing about companies like Enron.

Business Buzzword Bingo

Like Seth Godin I liked the idea of Business Buzzword Bingo. In marketing meetings I would add words like Eyeballs; Penetration; Customer-centric; Metrics; Brandscape... actually, the list could go on and on.

Adpulp on Lovemarks

Over at adpulp, dburn chips in to the Lovemarks debate: Will the real Kevin Roberts please stand up. He's not read the book yet, but challenges bloggers who don't like it. In doing so, he sparks off a constructive discussion which I joined in.

Thanks to dburn for speaking up for Lovemarks in the blog debate. While we wait patiently for the author himself, or any of his 7000 faithful employees, to do so...

Natural capitalism

I've just finished the book, Natural Capitalism. It's pretty rare for me to make it to the end of any business book; 9 times out of 10 the second halves are just a reheated version of the first chapters. Not this time.

The book is great, packed with fascinating examples and is both alarming in its exposition of the threat of climate change and resource depletion yet profoundly optimistic in outlook, citing countless innovations that could turn things round.

Central to the book is the idea of putting some value on the earth's natural resources, something conventional economics is terrible at doing. Hardly unreasonable, you might think.

Likewise, there's an attractive logic to its advocacy of resource efficiency and the aim of elminating waste. In nature, it argues, there is no waste, because everything output in one place is used up someplace else. Yet the last hundred years or so of human progress, for all the benefits they have brought, seem to have violated this principle with far reaching consequences.

The exposition of the vast amounts of material and energy consumed to keep one American (and I daresay anyone else in the developed world) in clothes, food and transport was shocking. I was fascinated by the detailed story of the effort involved in delivering a few mouthfuls of carbonated, sugary water to me in a can (AKA Coca Cola). This certainly made me feel like not buying another one.

I'm left reflecting on how marketing could step up to the plate and support radical resource efficiency. It certainly isn't very efficient in its use of most people's limited amount of attention.

And am I alone is asking myself: shouldn't I be increasingly picky about the sorts of products and services I want to put my own time and effort into promoting...