Last week, John Winsor shared some toughts regarding how the pace of change has become greater than most companies are able to manage and what can be done about it, if you find yourself in that place. I liked what he had to say, but one part in particular caused me to think in a bit of a different direction. In this part, John shares a train of thought on the implications of purchasing a level app for his iPhone rather than buying an actual level. Here's what he says: Today every sector of the global economy is being affected by the relentless drive for efficiencies. This might have been obvious to you but it really struck home last week when I was trying to hang a picture. I was without a level and about to run out to get a level when Bridget said, “I’ll bet there’s a level app on the iPhone.” Sure enough there are 4 free apps plus a slew of them that cost 99 cents. I downloaded one in a minute. My new level worked great. While I’ve always been blinded the bright light of technology and innovation I started thinking about the negative effects of my actions. My decision to download the level app meant that the retailer, the level manufacturer, the metal supplier and all of their employees lost out on revenue. While my actions benefited me, as a consumer, it had broad implications for society, as a whole. By extracting economic inefficiencies,... Continue reading

Len Kendall recently published a thoughtful post proposing a "hierarchy of Internet needs" based on Maslow's hierarchy of needs. The prompt for his post was Facebook's switcheroo on making their @facebook.com email address the only visible email address for users without their consent. Len's take on a hierarchy looked like this: His explanation for the uproar caused by Facebook's move to drive use of their version of email was that they violated the second level of his newly created hierarchy, stability. In other words, they disrupted a formerly stable part of Facebook that displays our personal contact information to suit their needs without asking us. The remaining four sections Len created are organized based on how he views their priority. He describes the pinnacle of our Internet needs as, "a completely editable internet" which "would encompass customizing how and where we consume information, writing code to manipulate what others have already built, and editing how we interact with devices by adding connectivity to them (internet of things)." I hadn't really thought of something like this before, but I've spent a bit of time with Maslow's model for various reasons, so I wanted to wrestle with Len's idea a bit. I liked where he was heading, but for me, something in his order felt a little off. What peeved so many people with Facebook's email maneuver wasn't about stability. It was more likely due to people feeling that something very personal (how they prefered to be contacted) had been violated. I... Continue reading

The ad world got a bit of good news today when TechCrunch reported on a new longitudinal study of business students conducted by Berkeley. The study's finding?: Happiness isn't about money. The bad news for advertising? Happiness is about respect. From the TechCrunch post: “The joy that comes with an influx of money wanes quickly as people become accustomed to how wealth shapes their daily lives. Yet respect and admiration from one’s face-to-face groups might bring sustained [Subjective Well-Being],” concludes a new Berkeley study, which finds that the respect of one’s peers is far more predictive of an MBA’s happiness after graduation than their income. ... What the Berkeley study shows is that entrepreneurs who work tireless hours creating new products, or tech giants who push game-changing ideas, are sincere in their explanation that the effort isn’t about the money. But, it’s not altruism either. Rather, it’s about wanting to look at yourself in the mirror, and your friends in the eyes, and feel worthy of respect. I think that this points to a very real reason that advertising is having a hard time recruiting and retaining new talent. Specifically younger talent. Telling someone you work in advertising doesn't bring you nearly as much respect from your friends and peers as does working at a start-up or a tech company. Plus, we all know that starting salaries in advertising are still crap, so money has never been a good reason to get into the business in the first place. Advertising... Continue reading

A while back, Adweek wondered if video apps will get some Instagram-like love. They point to Socialcam and Viddy as two of the top contenders. Why? Because you can apply filters to your videos and share them on social networks in the way that Instagram lets you do this with pictures? It's clear that they haven't put in much thought into what actually made Instagram successful. Yes, Instagram lets some people cheat at creating an interesting image out of an ordinary or boring one. Applying a filter to an ordinary or otherwise boring picture can make it look better, or more interesting. But applying a filter to an ordinary or boring video doesn't make it more interesting. It just makes it look different. The only similarity between shooting an interesting picture with your phone and shooting an interesting video with your phone is the fact that both are captured on the same device. Beyond that, they're nothing alike. One of the main things to consider in this is the process of getting your image or video from the phone to the web in the exact way you want it. With pictures, an average user can shoot several shots of something or someone in a matter of a few seconds, pick the one that has exactly the right look, do some quick manipulations in Instagram or another photo app, and then proudly share it. Once the shot becomes public, there's not much their friends and followers can judge it upon beyond... Continue reading

Netflix uses the Ryan Gosling "Hey Girl, ..." meme on Facebook and Twitter to announce that Drive is now available on disc and streaming. I love how this plays right along with culture. Nice work, Netflix. Continue reading

There are a lot of people talking about the importance of launching and iterating these days. Just put it out there and keep moving. Don't put off launching to make it perfect. It will never be perfect. Just make it good enough and go. Don't be afraid to fail, be afraid of not failing fast enough. While I agree with the spirit of these statements and the context in which people are talking about them, there is a balance. If it's not good enough, you shouldn't launch it just to hit a self-imposed deadline. Especially with advertising. Nobody is dying to see your next ad, so why should you let yourself get caught up in rushing to get a new ad out there? This doesn't just apply to an ad though. It applies to any idea you create. Why hurry? Why not instead, take the time needed to get it right? It's important to get the idea right because attention is at a premium. You're not just competing against your competitors for people's attention and you're not just competing against the other ads in the time/media space. You're competing against a million other things people could be doing instead of engaging with your idea. Beyond that, every idea you release into the world determines how willing someone will be to spend time with your next idea. If you wasted their time this time, why will they pay attention to you next time? Every detail of the idea matters in a... Continue reading

Yet another good example of Nike getting out and doing things to help people become better at their sports, not just saying things to them through advertising. For more on what Nike is up to with their marketing, see the recent article from Fortune on them. Nicely done, Nike and R/GA. Nicely done. Continue reading

Thought this was a great way to frame-up how leadership needs to evolve from "command and control" to "empower and roll" in our current business climate. The highlights are mine. The words are Mr. Ito's. The Internet has enabled the cost of the production and distribution of ideas and information to plummet nearly to zero-resulting in an explosion of ideas and a low cost of collaboration. This has prompted a great deal of innovation, but also a complexity, speed and capacity for amplification that makes the world a difficult and dangerous place for many organizations and human-made systems designed for a slower and simpler era. The cost of planning, predicting and managing rapidly changing, complex systems often exceeds the cost of actually doing whatever is being planned and managed. In fact, it can be often easier to try something and iterate than to try to predict the outcome and manage the risks. Most great ideas as well as dramatic failures have been unpredictable and are only obvious in hindsight. (Don't get me wrong: foreknowledge and planning are useful and, often, necessary; they're just not sufficient.) In such a world, leadership hinges on the ability to master a broad set of skills and character traits necessary for fostering a robust system, including courage, flexibility, speed, values and a strong vision and trajectory. It's more important to have a strong compass than a detailed street map since the map is probably outdated and wrong. These kinds of decentralized models of leadership have... Continue reading

The Jimmy V Classic was on earlier tonight. Between the games, they played Coach Valvano's speech at the 1993 ESPYs. It's a touching talk full of good advice... Every day try to laugh, think, and feel joy or sadness to the point of tears. When you think, think about where you started, think about where you are and think about where you're going to be. To get from where you are to where you want to be you have to have enthusiasm for life, you have to have a goal/a dream, and you have to be willing to work for it. Enjoy every moment of your life with everything you have. Don't give up, don't ever give up. Continue reading

Apple wasn't the only one making a big announcement last week about one of their devices. They just got a lot more coverage. In case you missed it, here's what Xbox Live + Kinect have in store for watching TV: Continue reading

As I have shared many times in the past, I believe that there is much that marketing communications people can learn from the world of design. One of the greats to learn from is Dieter Rams. His 10 Principles of Good Design are timeless and true to the very core. The quote above on design is equally true to creating advertising, web sites, mobile apps or any other type of "brand" experience for people. Indifference for the people we create things for and the reality of their daily lives is not just foolish, it's wrong. Continue reading

Back in early June, I received my Nice Ride key (pictured above). I had decided in late May to take advantage of the discounted price for an annual subscription, knowing that there would be days where a ride from work to home or vice versa would be more enjoyable than my typical walk. What I didn't expect was to enjoy riding a bike again so much. Somewhere around my second or third ride, I decided that it would be fun to document some of the places I rode the Nice Ride bikes over the summer on Instagr.am, using the hashtag #summerofnicerides. It was inspired by some of the women in the Twin Cities who started using #summerofdresses last year and are doing it again this summer. Not long after a few shots were posted, Arik emailed me to ask if I would be open to others joining in to share their adventures using the hashtag as well. I of course agreed and thanks to Arik and the good people at Bike Walk Twin Cities and Nice Ride, it has now found a home on the web for others to share stories and pictures of their bikes, favorite rides and adventures. You can read more about it on the BikeWalk blog, including how to participate. Or, just go to the "Submit" section on the Summer of Nice Rides blog. It would be great to get more people to take part, so consider this me asking you to join in if you... Continue reading

Thaz shared a "quote" from a post by Maria that came from this TED Talk by Maajid Nawaz. The quote, wasn't actually a quote, but appears to be Maria's summarization of the first part of Maajid's talk. The statement was as follows: Regardless of it being a quote or a note, and my liking a lot of what Mr. Nawaz had to say, I don't agree with this notion of identity definition or the term for our current era as "the age of behavior." Ideas and narratives have always been a part of our identity construction and communication, and our behaviors have always reflected our beliefs about ourselves and the world. What's true throughout time is that our beliefs about these things shape our identities. The change lies in how much information is available to us for our identity constructions today vs. the past and how the exposure to that information has changed our belief structures over time. In the past (when religion and ethnicity more easily defined our identities), our exposure to new information was tightly controlled and the experiences that shaped us were limited to the geography we lived in and could relatively easily travel around in. At this time, there were fewer expressions of the main religions of the world and people's ethnic make-up was far less diverse. Because of these factors, it was easy to quickly understand someone's identity based on these simple factors. With the advent of the printing press and new forms of transportation,... Continue reading

I came across this video from Gary Hamel the other morning and thought it was worth sharing. The man doesn't lie. We've got to change the way we operate if we're going to get different results. It is so simple and so obvious, but is one of the most challenging things for a large, well established organization to do. While this is an inspiring talk, it made me reflect on something that's been rattling around in my brain for a while now. Yes, we have to change the way we manage our organizations. But that will only go so far. To drive real change, we have to change the way our organizations are managed. Wait, what? Isn't that the same thing, just flipped around? Are you trying to pull a Jedi mind trick or something? No. It's not the same thing. Everything is connected to something else. Changing the way you manage your organization is a good start, but it's only that—a start. If you want to create real change, you can't just change the way you manage your organization. You have to change the way your organization is managed. In Onward, Howard Schultz discusses how he saw that he needed to change the way stores were being deemed as successful or failing if he were to succeed in turning the brand around. What he learned in the early stages of his return was that through Starbucks becoming a public company, the emphasis on providing a great customer experience shrunk... Continue reading

In this Cannes Lions case study video, we can see that CHEIL asked themselves how they could get the Home Plus store to come to more people rather than asking how they could get more people to come to the store. Sometimes, simply flipping the key question around is all you need to land on a great idea. It's by no means a new way to generate ideas, but I think it's an often forgotten one. As an interesting related note regarding the awarding of the Media Grand Prix Lion to CHEIL for this work, AdAge.com shares the following (Ms. Francoli Plaza was the jury chair for the media category): "It was pretty unanimous. ... When we saw this case most of us appreciated the difference and the consumer insight," said Ms. Francoli Plaza. While there was wide agreement about which agency and campaign should be awarded the top prize, the topic of effectiveness and to what degree results should be factored into the deliberation process prompted much debate, the jurors said. (In the end, effectiveness wound up taking a backseat to creativity.) It would appear that before they set out to judge the work, there was a debate about where to place greater emphasis, creativity or effectiveness. The planner in me cringes at diminishing the importance of effectiveness, but the creative spirit in me champions their decision in this case. This age-old debate has a far different context in the modern era of media versus its relevance to the... Continue reading

Last weekend I went through a bunch of my notes over the past year and dropped a few of the thoughts that were there into these slides. These were all things that I meant to write a post about but never got around to writing. The purpose for doing this was two-fold. First, now that I'm wanting to get back to writing more often, I'm hoping that this will give me some fodder and inspiration. Secondly, I'm playing with developing a more consistent slide look/feel for things on here and this is what I'm liking the most of what I've tried so far. If anything in here piques your curiosity or spurs a thought you want to chat about, drop me a note in the comments. Same goes for any thoughts on slide look/feel. Also, four or five of the notes/thoughts in here were spurred by Where Good Ideas Come From: The Natural History of Innovation, by Steven Johnson. I read it last winter shortly after it came out. It's a pretty good read to understand the types of environments that spur new thinking. Another one is a take on a fun quote by Linus Pauling. Continue reading

Just a quick one this morning... Neil kindly shared this video of Tom Hulme explaining IDEO's Business Visualization Model and I wanted to pass it on as it's a good explanation of the same tool Colin walked us through as part of his presentation at Planning-ness. If you weren't in Colin's session or at Planning-ness, it's a nice bit of content to add context to his slides. Continue reading

A few weeks ago, I finished reading Onward by Howard Schultz. Rodale was kind enough to send me a copy for review and I'm glad they did. I highly recommend picking it up as a case study for insight into what it takes to build and then re-energize a modern brand. In the book, Schultz openly shares several lessons about leadership, management and marketing in general that I believe are critical to building a successful brand in today's complex business environment. He also shares the stories behind some of their more recent innovations, which was fun to hear. There are far too many things in the book that stand out to get it all down in one post. So, I'll just share a couple for now. One of the things that I keep going back to being a key part of what makes Starbucks great is their mission statement (pictured above). This is a fantastic example of a purpose-based mission that aims to be about something bigger than profit. A modern brand has to have something like this at its core if it is going to connect with people on a human level. That is true both inside and outside the company. If your only aim is money, it leaves everyone feeling pretty hollow eventually. The biggest thing that struck me the most throughout the entire book though was Howard's clear and abundant passion for the brand. It is because of his passion that Starbucks is what it is. It's... Continue reading

For those of you coming to Planning-ness, here are some tips and thoughts for you on getting around town, eating and drinking. This is off the top of my head, so I'm sure I'm missing something, but with a busy few days here, I'm going to guess that this is more than enough. If any of you who live here have other thoughts, arguments or support for any of these recommendations, chime in in the comments. With that, here we go... Getting around: For getting to downtown from the airport, you can take a cab of course, but if you're not in a hurry, you can also take our light rail system to the Nicollet Mall stop (most likely, for most of you). Once you're settled into your hotel, depending on where you're staying and where you're trying to go, walking and cabs can get you to plenty of good places. For the more adventurous of you though, there's our fantastic bike sharing program—Nice Ride MN. I believe there's a station not too far from Zeus Jones, so this might be a fun way for you to get to that happy hour on Friday. Eating: For this one, I'm just going to give you the names with links and let you go from there. For those of you not too concerned about the final bill for the night, I'd look to go to La Belle Vie, 112 Eatery, Restaurant Alma, or Manny's Steakhouse. For something not quite as "spendy" (to... Continue reading

Poison & Wine - The Civil Wars I know this isn't what I usually share here, and that I've been away for a while so it might be an odd thing to jump back in with, but I thought this was just too beautiful not to share. I've always believed that some of the most beautiful art in this world gets created out of intensely deep pain. This song reminds me of that. Some of you have already heard it, I'm sure. For those that haven't, enjoy. Thank you, Erin for telling me to check them out. Lyrics: You only know what i want I you to I know everything you don't want me to your mouth is poison your mouth is wine you think your dreams are the same as mine I don't love you but I always will I don't love you but I always will I don't love you but I always will I always will I wish you'd hold me when I turn my back well the less I give the more I get back your hands can heal, your hands can bruise I don't have a choice, but I'd still choose you I don't love you but I always will I don't love you but I always will I don't love you but I always will I don't love you but I always will I don't love you but I always will I don't love you but I always will I don't love you but... Continue reading