plannerliness

listening

2009-12-01T22:44:00.002-06:00

Great thoughts from Jeremiah Owyang on listening. View it in full.

Evolution: The Eight Stages Of Listening

View more presentations from jeremiah_owyang.

goggle dog

2009-05-11T22:13:00.002-06:00

goggle dog, originally uploaded by joshcarlton.

I really wish my dog would go for these.

building brand communities

2009-05-11T22:08:00.001-06:00

In web terms, it's an oldie. but still a goodie, connecting a lot of Gladwell's work to brands:

Building Brand Communities

View more presentations from Lee Dale.

burrito bunny

2009-04-11T13:01:00.001-06:00

A closed for Easter message, the Chipotle way. Brilliant.

the true homepages

2009-03-30T19:45:00.001-06:00

We had a great speaker, Peter Spande from Federated Media, come in recently and talk about homepages among other things.

Bottom line, which seems so simple after hearing it... there's a difference between company-built sites and what people perceive as a company's website.

Quick case... this is the US site that Ray-Ban built. It's beautiful and has a lot of cool features/navigation/videos/etc:

And, this is their homepage as consumers see it:

This page has a link to shopping results, a random youtube video, a link to cutwater/psyop's new colorize campaign, and so on... this is how its customers most likely see the web when looking for Ray-Ban info.

This is not meant to be pickin' on Ray-Ban, as this comparison can be done with many brands. Spring and sunshine are on the way so I just happen to have shades on the brain.

thursday links

2009-03-26T19:28:00.003-06:00

Some random thoughts/links/etc from this week so far:

Need to find this article from HBR on brand communities. "Embrace conflict, resist the urge to control, forget opinion leaders—and build your brand." Thanks @herdmeister.
Drillable media.
TMA put the gecko on youtube. (clip below)
Twitter is making money! Twitter is dead!
Great piece from Ad Age on visualization of data.
vitamin water on facebook. Looking forward to seeing how this goes over the next couple of months. It's a very cool idea to send people to facebook.com/vitaminwater
This set of sketches from sxsw on flickr is awesome. via FEED.
Seth Godin's interesting approach to building an exclusive community.
More BBH... this is kinda old news, but still worth a shout. This time for the Oasis "Dig Out Your Soul" album. (clip below).
Chaos 2 from Garfield.
Would love to see a financially-oriented company do something like this - mint.com.

Oasis - Dig Out Your Soul In The Streets

Numa Numa guy with the gecko

bike accidents/PTI/Today Show

2009-03-26T19:11:00.005-06:00

I love how this kind of stuff happens and spreads. One of my favorite shows, PTI, mocks Matt Lauer's bike accident a couple of days ago, then Tony Kornheiser gets pulled into The Today Show this morning:

it's two things: simple + compelling

2009-03-22T20:23:00.002-06:00

Another great presentation on users of social media and the shifts in where people are spending time. Via chroma via threebillion.

Netpop | Connect: Media Shifts to Social 2009 Preview

View more presentations from Netpop.

weekly readings

2009-03-22T19:50:00.004-06:00

After slowly accumulating/clicking on articles etc in twitter and other places, here's the weekly round-up:

Excellent read on big ideas meeting two-way communications.
Time + others partner to produce a customized weekly mag. This is brilliant.
Guy Kawasaki on twitter.
Getting the knee back in shape.
Mark Cuban on the coming bandwidth issues.
Hamlet in new media. I got a message back from one of the Richmond Shakespeare folks with another one by Ophelia: "Ophelia likes flowers. Flowers, flowers, flowers. Oh look! A river........ Ophelia is no longer online."
Continuing the Shakespeare thing... six new works by the Bard?
Interesting - kashi has a community section of its site.
Feel so behind. Just found Brian Morrissey this week.
Helping displays ads get better.
Bands still seem to be one step ahead of everyone else. This idea from No Doubt is outstanding.
More tools/ideas for twitter. Thanks @definetigers.
Focus groups are dead?
Ad age: playtime is over for social media.
Read if you have 15 mins... long piece on web advertising, but thought-provoking, from TechCrunch.

couldn't have said it better

2009-03-17T11:25:00.003-06:00

Finally catching up on reading Here Comes Everybody by Shirky. It's fantastic - chock full of simple ways to capture what's happening right now, like the last sentence here.

the slideshare seven

2009-03-15T22:48:00.004-06:00

I'm about to crash firefox for the 11th time tonight, so thought I'd put up a few links to a few fantastic presentations that have been stretching my brain recently... in a good way. Some old, some new:

1. Gareth's talk at VCU a few wks back:

Vcufeb09

View more presentations from garethk.

2. Great stuff from Bud Caddell - "Digital Media Isn't Mass Media for Cheap":

Digital Media isn't Mass Media for Cheap

View more presentations from Bud Caddell.

3. More from Bud:

The Fan Economy: Becoming Fan Focused

View more presentations from Bud Caddell.

4. An oldie but goodie:

The Brand Gap

View more presentations from coolstuff.

5. Happiness + Brands (read: games)

The Rise of the Happiness Brands

View more presentations from avantgame.

6. Social networks will be like air:

The Future Of Social Networks

View more presentations from Charlene Li.

7.Marketing as a service. From Zeus Jones. Thanks @ryclifton

Zeus Jones Credentials

View more presentations from Zeus Jones.

rolling rock

2009-03-15T22:09:00.002-06:00

For my money, this Rolling Rock case from Goodby is one of the new classic cases of planning that was involved in launching interesting, participatory ideas into culture:

wario shakes it up

2008-09-25T18:47:00.002-06:00

This is just amazing. Completely unexpected and infinitely watchable.

Would love to know who the genius minds were behind it.

And for some laughs, the classic gizmodo post on a Japanese Wii Safety Manual always comes through.

thanks to adrants for the Wario tip.

radio silence

2008-09-16T19:22:00.006-06:00

So it turns out that a blog is not the best thing to manage with an infant and a move to Richmond all in a few months' time.

Back in Feb we were a little too zealous with the "we're back"... and since then the site has struggled to keep on the top of mind and top of effort. But, it just can't sit here and die without one last hurrah. Starting with this one. Hi Mom, again.

photo from flickr user hinkelstone

vote for feet!

2008-02-13T10:40:00.004-06:00

It's the voting season... I entered one of our baby pics (above) into a creativity contest on the marketing fresh peel.

If you like the pic, we could use your vote here. (keep hitting refresh or vote on the other pics and happy feet will come up at some point).

The prize is a lot of pride and a metamemes ThinkCube, so I'll post a rvw of it up here if this contest works out in my favor.

conversations

2008-02-10T22:14:00.000-06:00

- architect David Adjaye, in dwell.

scrabble vs. scrabble

2008-02-10T12:56:00.000-06:00

I've been involved in some long and drawn-out games of will with some folks in facebook. The game of choice is scrabulous. It's highly addictive and everything about it screams scrabble and (you saw this coming 8 miles away...) the hasbro ownership of the original scrabble game are not happy with the application/game's soaring popularity on facebook.

As of Jan 11, '08, scrabulous had gained 2.3 million users. So it looks like the free ride may soon be over. In some ways this smells of Napster. Hasbro could learn what not to do from the RIAA - instead of making facebook take the application out, capitalize on it. Josh Quittner at Fortune proposes Hasbro seep in and buy scrabulous, which should only be the beginning.

Hasbro - 2.3 million people and counting are telling you that they're happy playing scrabble. Take advantage of the social connections the game allows and figure out if people want to play off-line - hold campus events, figure out a way to connect on- and off-line play(wifi scrabble boards)... just do something.

I can't imagine the lawsuit route is an approach Cranium would use.

long time no see

2008-02-06T13:30:00.000-06:00

This post has been one of the toughest I've sat down to write since we started about 2 yrs ago... a huge helping of inertia.

A lot happens being away for 5 months. A lot meaning that Andrea and I welcomed our first child into the world a few weeks back. What an overwhelming feeling of joy to see her being born. It was indescribable... the prior doubts (are we ready? no, really, are we ready for this??) went away in a flash after hearing that first cry in the delivery room.

Anyways, I used the time leading up to Eva's birth as water for the ever-burning fire that is a blog not posted to in a really long time... So, we're back on air. For what hopes to be another solid amount of time. Hi Mom.

I've got a few thoughts scribbled down in between the diaper times that need to be typed up. And this may eventually morph into a different page or site... who knows. This is a start.

can't make this stuff up

2007-08-29T20:43:00.001-06:00

I can't wait for college football season to kick off this weekend. Saturdays are just amazing this time of year. And on a related note, this sounds like it should be out of the onion, but sadly it's not -- remember to keep the burnt orange at home when in Oklahoma City.

handles

2007-08-03T10:42:00.001-06:00

John, this blog's co-author, lives/works in Texas so it was a nice surprise to hang out for a night in DC this week a couple evenings ago. While we were chatting over a beer at fado we noticed the Miller Lite tap (on the far left, hard to see... camera phone pic) was about 1/2-1/3 the size of all the other taps. Blue Moon even has their own nifty silver pipe.

We started talking about this and - if we were Miller's people we'd be upset about this presentation. The half-sized tap handle implies a half-decent beer, vs. the other more elegant handles. Those other beers are a notch above Lite, but even Yuengling (which I believe is a notch above the others), another domestic, doubles their handle size. Maybe they're trying to imply the low calorie count.

Then I took the picture and played around in picnik which I don't think we've talked about before here. It's a great (+ free) online image editor, integrates with your flickr/facebook accounts and more, and offers a lot of basic photo editing. Very convenient for those sometimes-ugly camera phone shots.

hodgepodge

2007-07-26T19:28:00.000-06:00

I'm feeling a lot more relaxed these days. Must be the upcoming time off in about a week and the fact that the recent new business rush has lightened up.

A few random links of note for today...

Interview with Jim Buckmaster - craigslist CEO. This makes me love the site even more, and they've helped me sell and buy dozens of things - concert/sports tickets, furniture, tvs and gadgets, etc
On David Beckham's insurance policy - from the onion
Map of world Internet usage - helps provide a little perspective
An inspirational place to play - ShelSilverstein.com
Picnik.com is getting some positive press love from Walt Mossberg of the WSJ
The site trendio.com - a way to buy shares in what's going to be talked about in the news
Surfing cows in Orange County, CA... quotes like this should only be allowed in articles from the onion:

"Organizers also took special precautions to make sure no one expecting to build a sandcastle instead happened upon a cow pie.

A 10-member group of yellow-vested pooper scoopers followed behind the herd, raking, shoveling up and spraying down any place where the steers had made their mark.

'Someone's gotta do it,' Reymundo Dominguez said. 'I guess this is just our time.'"

simpsonizer

2007-07-20T14:25:00.001-06:00

The Simpsons movie marketing has been everywhere in recent days, but I can't resists linking through to this, the Simpsonizer. I Simpsonized myself and went to hang out at the Springfield Nuclear Power Plant.

Hat tip to the wonderful Photojojo newsletter.

enjoy.

not cardbored

2007-07-10T23:56:00.000-06:00

Dwell pointed me to this funky site that has downloadable patterns to make chairs and stools out of cardboard. I haven't tried it yet, but have a big ceiling fan box that will probably end up being used as a chair this weekend or next.

the aquapods have landed

2007-07-02T06:48:00.000-06:00

This "Aquapod" has to be one of the coolest bottled water packages yet. And it's made by Deer Park, no less. Just shows how changing the status quo in packaging can make a product more attractive/memorable - it's the same water in there as everyone else, just doesn't seem like it.

I'm sure this is meant more for kids in the same vein as Heinz green ketchup, and I think they've actually succeeded in making bottled water less boring.

learning to drive

2007-07-01T10:41:00.000-06:00

BMW has just launched an entertaining site with a bunch of mini videos supporting its driving school in South Carolina. My favorite is the old sailor in the middle.

After clicking "undo the damage", the video clips of the cars in action at the school are pretty amazing. It makes me want to go down there, even though I'm a long ways from driving a BMW.

Relearn to Drive

what i fear

2007-06-14T20:30:00.000-06:00

Funny how accurate this little chart from the onion is. I just got yet another card in the mail from my alma mater asking for cash... the way they talk you'd think the school couldn't go on without my donation.

cranky

2007-06-03T22:29:00.000-06:00

I've been keeping up on baseball more this year than in the past, and one storyline I'm into more than the Barry Bonds home run record chase is Bobby Cox breaking the record for ejections from a game.

It's not role model behavior by any means, but watching these normally smart and cool/calm/collected people lose it is usually worth many laughs... this AA team manager's tantrum is an instant classic:

wwww

2007-05-16T19:51:00.000-06:00

Last Monday I went down to the world wide web Washington conference here in DC with a couple of colleagues. This was the first of its kind in the area and drew a large crowd, which was great to see. The organizers are going to bring the one-day event/quick-speaker (15-30 minute talks) format to a bunch of other cities, if it's in your town definitely worth the trip.

The CEO of Washington Post/Newsweek Interactive, Caroline Little, led off the day with a talk about the stuff they are doing to deal with all the changes in the news industry. One of the cooler things happening is that they have given 50 reporters video cameras to help with storytelling, and if a reporter is out there uncovering a great story they can break out the camera and upload the video to the web alongside the text article. At this point, they should go ahead and pass out video cameras to everyone on staff.

An example of using video to help tell a story was a piece they ran back in April on a famous violinist being virtually ignored by a DC metro station audience. The story just took off to a national audience, and a key part of that was the video footage. A question came from the audience that was interesting to think about - is the web a place for social experiments like this to become more and more popular? On a side note, I remember an intro psych class where we had to walk across campus with a jacket on backwards or something like that, to see how people would react... would have been fun to tape it and put up on the web.

Brian Crooks of Avenue A | Razorfish, Philadelphia, talked about how the explosion of the "post-html" world was a sign that "we got it wrong the first time." As a web designer working with companies back in the late 90s, he felt that the previous nature of the web was too much like the previous media available closest to it, print. Back then no one really knew what was happening so they just took something they were familiar with and reworked it for the web... and in the mad flurry to get sites up the real purpose and opportunities got lost.

He took partial responsibility for "breaking the web" - and the users flooded in to fix it by driving the popularity of digg, myspace, etc. He also talked about the idea of cultural snacking and how information is being broken up into little bits and pieces here and there, and people are asking for it that way. This presentation also had the two coolest slides of the day which I've tried to recreate... comparing the old way of doing business (very orderly, neat, "we tell you")...

...vs. the new way of doing business/marketing (very messy, but a good messy).

David Belman of Threespot Media talked about the last 10 years online. After some general talk about the growth of the web (# HH online then vs. now, # sites, etc.), he then took a hard look at branding online - how if you remove the logos from the NYT, Washington Post, and Miami Herald websites (and almost any other newspaper out there) you can't easily figure out which one is which:

Another way to build a brand online is through all parts of a site, including functional pieces like navigation bars. He compared Microsoft, IBM, GE, Intel, and Apple sites and how the navigation feels very similar between all of them. In Apple's case, the .com navigation doesn't sync up with the OSX navigation. Even with all this sameness in functional web design, people still don't know where to find info, as 43% of web users go to a search function immediately upon visiting a site.

One of the worst culprits of throwing information at a user with a "here's everything including the kitchen sink, good luck with all of that..." attitude is msnbc.com - a site that you can scroll down for what seems like an eternity and still find links to click on. It just screams that "we have no idea who you are and what you want" to the user. Examples he gave of brands doing things right online: Disney, VW, Altoids, Starbucks, Kayak, and JetBlue.

The other talks of the day were for the most part excellent but I felt like the ones above were really above and beyond what's expected at these types of events. An all-around energizing day.

asics vs. mizuno

2007-05-03T00:28:00.000-06:00

Asics is one of my answers when I'm asked what my favorite brands\companies are - I've had about 25 pairs of these asics running shoes over the last 12 years or so - GT something or other. I hurt my knee last year, first serious running injury so far and I had to take the winter off.

So now it's time to get back into the running mode and I went over to one of those running shops where they watch how your feet hit the ground and recommend shoes based on that... they used a video camera placed behind a treadmill at the bottom where my feet hit, that was connected to a monitor screen so I could see it along with the salespeople.

They ended up telling me that the asics are a bit too structured for me, and had me try on a few pairs. Adidas didn't feel right, New Balance were a little too snug in the heel, Montrail trail shoes felt too hard, so I went with the Mizunos below, they felt perfect. Abandoning my asics was sheer agony - I thought that if I went with another brand injury would be inevitable. They've treated me right for so long, why would I switch now? One of the salespeople sensed my hesitation and commented, "it's not like you gave asics a wedding band... you're not sponsored by them... just drop them like a bad habit and move on with it already."

Even with the pep talk, I walked around for several days with the new shoes on without going out and getting them dirty just in case I had a change of heart. Jury's still out on how they'll feel after many miles but for now they feel like clouds on my feet, better than the asics have recently felt. I still have enough old asics pairs to outfit a cross country team, so every now and then they can make an appearance... but going with the Mizunos for my fresh pair was an incredibly tough, almost gut-wrenching experience. I wasn't aware of the bond that I really had with asics until I switched.

adtech

2007-05-02T23:49:00.000-06:00

I've temporarily misplaced my notebook from the adtech conference, but wanted to get some thoughts up in the meantime... more to come soon. Overall the conference had its ups and downs, but for the most part was great. Lots of buzz-like words and acronyms were dropped ("behavioral targeting") but looking past that the emerging themes were helpful.

Main theme of the breakout sessions I went to was the idea of engagement - providing value to your customers before interrupting them with a message to "buy, buy, buy." It's a good thing that a lot of clients seemed to be walking around - several people from Xbox, Microsoft, Yahoo! - for them to have an understanding of all this is a good way to get the sea change jump-started.

There were a few excellent sessions - viral/WOM and left coast creative sessions especially. Benjamin Palmer of The Barbarian Group stated that a lot of their work and alot of other out there viral, like the Milwaukee's Best Light beer cannon, is done when there's not much more choice - when companies are losing market share and think, "ok, there's nothing else we can do, let's put something together and see what happens." I enjoyed hearing about the Rolling Rock work from Goodby - how they created a controversy with their fictitious CMO Ron Stablehorn apologizing for ads that were distasteful, etc. to move the conversation away from the Latrobe, Pa. plant closing down. Great use of available tools.

more to come...

in SF

2007-04-24T23:31:00.000-06:00

So the first day of the conference is gone - more on that in the next post. What an amazing city this is, too. Love the energy and relaxed vibe all in one package.

I'm on the tmobile wireless thing and it's giving me fits, so first I had to get some thoughts down on my flight into the airport and make sure the connection's working.

Coming in was one of the scariest landings I've ever seen, water everywhere and just as we're about to touch down, out of nowhere appears the runway. Impressive and frightening all at the same time.

The flight in general was one of those kind of quirky ones where you never really know if it's a sign your trip is going to be good or bad.

I thought about it as a bunch of little battles...

7 ounces vs. 0.7 ounces: security guard was not amused I misread the "." on my shaving cream: whups
23 sneezes by the 8 people around me vs. my immune system: no lie
my movies on DVD vs. the laptop: argh
the no seatbelt sign vs. my bladder: double argh

After settling in, one thing I'm thrilled about is the presence of Anchor Steam beer everywhere. I love going places with special microbrewed beers like Denver (Fat Tire) or Austin (Shiner) - even though I can get them in DC, it just tastes to much better in its home state.

round here

2007-04-19T13:21:00.000-06:00

A combination of work schedules and life etc. have limited the posting here recently.

Hope to resume more writing soon, I just booked tix to the ad-tech SF conference, so that should serve as some inspiration. Anyone out there been to that conference before, or going this year?

video of the week

2007-04-19T13:10:00.000-06:00

just mesmerizing.

videos of the week

2007-04-12T20:02:00.000-06:00

Here are a few make-you-think-without-frying-brains-in-a-pan anti-drug ads from the ONDCP. W+K's above the influence campaign uses a dog to show disappointment with a pot smoker vs. a harder "this is your brain on drugs" message.

The campaign does work in different (better) ways than having a human read a scripted "don't do drugs" message into the camera - in a way the minimal cartoons make the situations more real because it's easier for the audience to relate.

They should start producing these videos in a longer-form version, too. The music is mesmerizing Sufjan Stevens-ish, and a powerful story could be developed as a 5-minute movie... just a thought.

Will this type of message work these days? Would like to know the effectiveness of the work in reducing marijuana use among teens, but it's probably too early to tell at this point.

Quite a difference from this type of thing:

ferry rides

2007-04-10T19:05:00.000-06:00

This weekend I stupidly went up and over to Poolesville, MD to play some golf in the 20 degree (spring?) weather. A friend and I had coupons for a free game before April 15th that we had to use. We lasted 7 holes, the wind was bitterly cold. I've always thought that coupons end up forcing you to make not-so-wise decisions and sometimes spend more than you otherwise would, and this instance was no different.

The $6 spent on White's Ferry across the Potomac was well worth it, though... I wasn't expecting it either which made it more special. The directions I had pointed me to "White's Ferry Rd" but I didn't make the connection that there would be an actual ferry there. It was fun, the anticipation of getting onto the ferry after the previous cargo drove off, being in my car on the river, and driving off on the other side. Easily the highlight of the day.

on powerpoint

2007-04-10T05:57:00.000-06:00

information aesthetics points us to a study on processing information by researchers at the University of NSW in Sydney. They've found that the brain processes and retains information better if that information is presented in either verbal or written form, but not both at the same time. Gives more credence to using image-driven presentations, with diagrams and visual representations of the words you're saying. Here's a quote:

"The use of the PowerPoint presentation has been a disaster," Professor Sweller said. "It should be ditched."
"It is effective to speak to a diagram, because it presents information in a different form. But it is not effective to speak the same words that are written, because it is putting too much load on the mind & decreases your ability to understand what is being presented."

letters from the past

2007-03-27T13:31:00.000-06:00

Remember doing time capsules back in elementary school? Drop in a couple of baseball cards, a note to the future, a toothbrush, pair of shoes, sunglasses, popular books, etc.

The LA Times had a great story over the weekend on a more personalized take on the idea. A couple of guys started a site that allows you to create an email time capsule - send an email to yourself anytime in the future between a month and 30 years from now.

The public entries have a very PostSecret-like feel, uplifting and hilarious at times, with plenty of bitter and sad notes.

photo from flickr user jek in the box.

if only something like this would actually happen

2007-03-27T01:20:00.000-06:00

Mike Lupica Uses Final Thought On Sports Reporters To Ask About His Missing Dog

NEW YORK—Sportswriter and pundit Mike Lupica, a regular panelist on ESPN's The Sports Reporters, used the time given him during the...

no more albums?

2007-03-26T18:50:00.000-06:00

The NYT has a great article today on the future of the album, or what will be left of it in a few years. The article states that the current pop music climate and mp3 driven world are making singles much more popular than whole albums these days. This trend goes back decades ago to the 50s, when popular artists had high sales of singles vs. albums. The album gained popularity in the late 60s-90s, but the single is back, at least for now.

Here's an excerpt:

A decade ago, the music industry had all but stopped selling music in individual units. But now, four years after Apple introduced its iTunes service — selling singles for 99 cents apiece and full albums typically for $9.99 — individual songs account for roughly two-thirds of all music sales volume in the United States. And that does not count purchases of music in other, bite-size forms like ring tones, which have sold more than 54 million units so far this year, according to Nielsen data.

One of the biggest reasons for the shift, analysts say, is that consumers — empowered to cherry-pick — are forgoing album purchases after years of paying for complete CD’s with too few songs they like. There are still cases where full albums succeed — the Red Hot Chili Peppers’ double-CD “Stadium Arcadium,” with a weighty 28 tracks, has sold almost two million copies. But the overall pie is shrinking.

Wired recently had a cover story on bite-sized culture, something that the rise of the single sheds even more light on. Society as a whole may not shed a tear for the fall of the album, but I will. When bands like Arcade Fire who make albums meant to be listened to from beginning to end it's crazy to think someone may only hear one or two songs as part of a playlist mix. Would we really know the power and emotion of Picasso's Guernica if we only saw 1/10 of it?

This is more related to the packaging itself, but with albums, I love the smell of it all, reading the liner notes, etc. - especially if the packaging is done well. You can't get that with a cd single (do they exist anymore?), and even buying an album on iTunes can't quite replace this stuff for me. Opening that little sticker on the top of a cd has kind of a ceremonial feel to it that just can't be replicated online... at least not yet.

Steven Johnson says it best at the end of the Wired piece,

"Yes, it sometimes seems as if we're living off a cultural diet of blog posts and instant messages - until we find ourselves losing an entire weekend watching season three of The Wire. The truth is, we have more snacks now only because the menu itself has gotten longer."

thanks to ypulse for the NYT tip.

video of the week

2007-03-24T15:03:00.000-06:00

calling all planners

2007-03-20T06:18:00.000-06:00

A friend and fellow Texas grad, Heather LeFevre, has launched her annual survey for account planners, this one's the 3rd time around.

From Heather:

It's time for the third annual planner survey. If you haven't participated before, the survey is designed to let us all see what planners at different agencies think about their jobs, understand what drives salaries, and hopefully learn more about how our discipline is changing. Each year it has grown and changed. 192 people participated last year and you are all receiving this email by blind copy. If you are not a planner, we're hopeful that you can forward this email to the planners you know. The first link below will send you to the survey - please only take the survey if you are working as a planner (freelance and those who work outside the US are welcome). The second link captures your email so I can send you the results and your answers stay anonymous.

UPDATE: The survey is confidential - which is why the survey and results links are separate. The results are for you to gain a better understanding of what planners think about their jobs and how it's changing, compensation/benefits issues, etc.

Take the survey.

Enter your email address here to receive results.

email if any questions, plannerliness AT gmail.com, or hklefevre AT gmail.com

box tops for addiction

2007-03-17T11:19:00.000-06:00

A couple of months ago I was taking out some old cereal boxes for recycling pick up, and a maintenance guy who works in our community stopped me and asked if he could have my box tops. I was a little startled - what could he want with the tops of my boxes? Was he trying to steal my identity somehow by knowing what type of cereal I eat? I had always seen these little logos on boxes in the cereal aisle, but didn't know the reason why a relative stranger would want them.

My sister, who's an elementary school teacher, helped explain about a week later that these little cut-outs can earn elementary schools a lot of money, $0.10 at a time. For every 10 cent cut-out schools receive, they get money from General Mills, and sometimes the school system will match. So I started taking notice and cutting them out when we bought golden grahams, lucky charms and other general mills cereals, I would send them down to her when I got a dozen or so.

Every addiction starts slowly - after cereal it moved on to kleenex boxes, ziploc bag boxes, chex mix - everywhere I looked the little "box tops" sticker was, it had taken on a life of its own and was following me, and I started to feel delighted to find more box tops in unexpected places. I recently did some research at work into the collector's mindset for a project on a local historical association that sells collectible products, and I was going down that path, except instead of antique furniture or baseball cards I was collecting these little cardboard cut-outs.

After a little searching it appears like a black market has developed for this new currency - on eBay people are selling box tops for about face value. On craigslist people have put up "wanted" posts:

Box tops for education has changed my shopping habits, my recycling/getting the trash ready habits, and it all seems worth it to help out the kids 10 cents at a time.

video of the week

2007-03-14T13:58:00.000-06:00

The classic Care Bear Stare. If only we humans could shoot rainbows from our bellies.

thanks eliz.

the summit

2007-03-05T15:10:00.000-06:00

I really wanted to make it to the Future Marketing Summit in NYC this week - quite a list of speakers to be seen, but just couldn't swing it.

Luckily, ihaveanidea.org comes to the rescue with a blog that looks to be updated throughout the sessions today and tomorrow.

fun with graphs

2007-02-27T10:16:00.000-06:00

I've been playing around on Swivel for a bit this morning, and it's one of those tools that's like hot cocoa on a cold day for plannerly types. It is still in preview/beta mode, but will get better as more and more people upload data and info.

Here's a chart (featured today) on Second Life usage that shows the high usage of the virtual world's average premium resident vs. the relatively low usage of the average regular resident, a category I'd fall in:

make a call from google maps

2007-02-22T09:07:00.000-06:00

The store locator function on a lot of websites is often hidden or takes a lot of looking in the small type to find, so I use google maps to find businesses. It saves quite a bit of time and eye strain.

Yesterday I logged onto the site yesterday to find the closest REI, and (drumroll please...) google now offers the option to connect you through to that business for free. What a feature, it made my day.

The call feature has to cost them something, but it's worth paying a few pennies per call to build more loyalty to their maps site. With stuff like this piling on to what they already offer, even if I get lost using one of their routes I'll still keep coming back.

iphone

2007-02-13T21:56:00.000-06:00

Apple Hard At Work Making iPhone Obsolete

CUPERTINO, CA—Only a month after the much-heralded announcement of the iPhone, Apple CEO Steve Jobs confirmed that his engineers were...

More geniusness from the onion. And this oldie but goodie below still shines - just swap out "98" with "Vista".

Evil Genius Gates Drops Windows 98 Into NYC Water Supply

NEW YORK—Determined to circumvent Justice Department action forestalling the release of his powerful new operating system, Microsoft CEO and evil genius Bill Gates dropped Windows 98, coded into liquid form, into New York City's water supply sometime this past weekend.

bikes

2007-02-07T07:54:00.000-06:00

I finally found the perfect mountain bike. After researching on the topic for weeks online, going to several bike shops, and talking to friends who are into the sport, I ended up buying a friend's older bike, in part because it was less intimidating than the other options.

It was a hellish process, I went into several bike stores and was intimidated by the lingo and the general vibe of the store - as a beginner I didn't feel like I belonged. Even after having a good grasp of things after reading some stuff online, I just didn't know the right questions to ask and was worried that I'd buy something that wasn't worth what they were charging or a bike that would break down in a year.

Then I saw this story/case on United's in-flight magazine (thanks to a boss, Kelly S.) and it all made sense. The story is about gear/shoe/bike everything-except-the-frame maker Shimano and its partnership with IDEO in an attempt to build a bike that gets more people into cycling in general, a product that reaches out to more people than to the bike gearheads.

Here's an excerpt:

Ideo equipped team members with hidden cameras and had them follow ordinary people into bike shops. The results were revealing. Consumers often were confused by the myriad offerings: road bikes, racing bikes, hybrid bikes, comfort bikes, recumbent bikes, and mountain bikes, just to name some basic categories. Many were intimidated by the staff as well. “It’s scary to see this shaved-leg, extremely fit cycling guru who talks in jargon and technical terms and say, ‘I just want a bike,’” says Ray Keener, the president of Growth Cycle, a producer of training programs for the bicycle industry based in Boulder, Colorado.

The typical reaction? “They run out of the store screaming,” says Jay Graves, who owns The Bike Gallery, the largest independent dealer in Portland, Oregon.

To give bike aficionados a taste of their own medicine, the Coasting team gave OEM representatives and a select group of dealers an assignment: Go to a cosmetics counter and buy $50 worth of products. The memory of facing down a battery of face creams and hair gels still makes Trek’s Price cringe. “I was genuinely uncomfortable. I didn’t know what to ask for or where to start,” he says. “It was exactly the same feeling I saw in the people in the Ideo videos—‘I have no idea what I’m doing here.’”

It's an inspiring read. Just brilliant.

photo from flickr user Thorne Enterprises

video of the week

2007-02-06T10:19:00.000-06:00

Not quite sure what to make of this one...

(RED)

2007-02-03T08:00:00.000-06:00

For anyone writing briefs or striving to write succintly and with passion, the (RED) manifesto is a work of art.

tip of the hat to Heather L.

tag is back

2007-02-02T18:08:00.000-06:00

So Kevin tagged me a long time ago and I thought about not writing this post as it seems a bit too late, but I do feel obliged to write it. So, here are 5 things you don't know about me. As for other people to tag, I tag the other writer of this blog, John, to get one up on this topic, and I've looked around and there's really no one left for my other 4 tags...

1. I'm not into reality tv, but did get into Beauty and the Geek. It's one of those things that I can't really explain.
2. I was a part-time waiter/bartender for 6 years. It was great experience for thinking on the fly, relating to lots of different people, and learning food, drinks, etc. But I'm glad that it's over, anyone who's done it will know what I mean. It's a rough way to earn money. I tip like a crazy man now, too. 25-30%.
3. You could call me a pen snob - I've tried a bunch of pens out but still haven't found one that's quite right. I just can't use those little $0.10 bic pens. They stifle my ability to write.
4. I have a soft spot for pop music at times. It's my windows up music.
5. The classic scene from Something About Mary has haunted me to this day. It makes me want to abolish the zipper from pants everywhere.

more on music

2007-02-02T17:35:00.000-06:00

There's been quite a bit of discussion recently about the future of music. This month's Fast Company has a fantastic piece on Musictoday - who along with artists like Beck and Barenaked Ladies are changing the way the industry is headed. Musictoday takes charge of the unsexy part of the business that is selling concert tix and also physical goods from a warehouse. The t-shirts, shot glasses, etc. helps artists generate name recognition and build that personal relationship with fans.

As artists start to give away tracks for free on myspace and their own websites, like Clap Your Hands Say Yeah has with their new album, it may free up some wiggle room in fan's pockets to buy that t-shirt or concert ticket. If I'm given a cd from a friend and I like the band, I make an extra effort to go to a show, artists get more of that $ anyways - maybe others will start to feel the same?

denver

2007-01-29T00:23:00.000-06:00

I've been back for a week and a half now but didn't have the energy to write anything here with the whole getting back into work thing.

This shot was probably immediately followed by a faceplant - spent a lot of time doing that, but those were worth it for the other times heading down the slopes. When I saw Riding Giants a few months back, I thought I knew the feeling the surfers were describing when talking about how they felt out on the water.

I was relating as a runner, but being out on a snowboard was a whole new level of natural high and was more similar to what they feel. It's so freeing being out there - no thoughts about anything other than the slight movements needed to turn the board and figuring out a path down the mountain. Even though there are several other people within sight, it feels like you and only you out there at peace with the mountain. Just incredible.

video of the week

2007-01-28T22:02:00.000-06:00

Video of the week returns with another wonderful 80s show - The Littlest Hobo.

off to the mountains

2007-01-10T16:51:00.000-06:00

I'm off to Colorado to attempt the above for the first time. Also looking forward to disconnecting from things out there... no posting here for a week or so.

future of libraries

2007-01-04T08:27:00.000-06:00

As a Fairfax County library user, I strangely feel somewhat guilty over the de-listing of Hemingway's "For Whom The Bell Tolls." I think I'll check it out over lunch today if it still has a life in the library system.

get smart is back - so is video of the week

2007-01-04T01:54:00.000-06:00

Here's a three-for to try to make up for recent slacking in the video of the week plan. I guess working late with the tv as background/distraction does have its benefits - I just saw an ad promoting TimeLife's DVD set of the old show Get Smart, one of my all-time favorites I used to watch on Nick @ Nite with my Dad growing up. Alas, the set isn't available at Amazon until fall.

To satisfy until then, a quick search dusted off the old cobwebs and brought back some great memories:

The birth of the classic "would you believe...?"

Props before computers. 'nuff said

Something that would improve many a meeting today.

warm noggins

2007-01-02T17:51:00.000-06:00

I love it when a brand talks to me like a person would - it's all too rare a treat these days. That's why Andrea & I had no problem splurging for some comfy Turtle Fur hats. They were already nicer quality than the others, and the friendly tags put them over the top.

things you love to hear a client say

2007-01-02T14:53:00.000-06:00

"I didn't really like the ads from our old agency
but it wasn't my place to say."

A blessing... or is it disguised as one. It doesn't sounds so great to think that they left the old shop for some reason, perhaps one that was never voiced?

video of the week #4

2006-12-19T00:28:00.000-06:00

This one is more like the video of the last 3 weeks, but I'm not giving up.

I wish life was more like this - have a daydream, and it happens. Can you imagine the possibilities during long meetings.

arlington

2006-12-18T15:10:00.000-06:00

Over the weekend Andrea and I went to Arlington Cemetary with her Grandma - what an incredible place, so simple but so powerful. It was an amazing site with wreaths on an entire section of tombstones.

you

2006-12-18T09:13:00.000-06:00

Time Magazine just named its person of the year – “you”, a nod to the new social web and the ways in which people are flocking to it and creating youtube videos, writing and recording songs, writing blogs, commenting on myspace and facebook pages, etc.

Here’s an excerpt:

“…the new Web is a very different thing. It's a tool for bringing together the small contributions of millions of people and making them matter. Silicon Valley consultants call it Web 2.0, as if it were a new version of some old software. But it's really a revolution.

And we are so ready for it. We're ready to balance our diet of predigested news with raw feeds from Baghdad and Boston and Beijing. You can learn more about how Americans live just by looking at the backgrounds of YouTube videos—those rumpled bedrooms and toy-strewn basement rec rooms—than you could from 1,000 hours of network television.

And we didn't just watch, we also worked. Like crazy. We made Facebook profiles and Second Life avatars and reviewed books at Amazon and recorded podcasts. We blogged about our candidates losing and wrote songs about getting dumped. We camcordered bombing runs and built open-source software.”

The whole article with links to tons of other info/articles is here.

Now that Time has written about this topic, it looks like it’s 90% to mainstream. When my grandparents start asking me about it next week – “what is it with people and those computers? What’s a facebook?” – It’s definitely all the way there.

the true futurologist

2006-12-14T19:58:00.000-06:00

We're a little late to this one but the Onion's ability to prophesize is incredible. Just over 2 months after they write about Blockbuster eliminating rental fees, the free to Netflix customers promo hits. Judging from how they predicted the 5 blade razor, we're only a year or two away from Blockbuster really giving stuff away.

frightening

2006-12-12T19:55:00.000-06:00

I heard an ad for Daytona 500 cologne today so I had to go searching out more about it. Press releases on partnerships like this usually contain a priceless quote, and this one doesn't disappoint:

"When you hear 'Start your engines' at Daytona each year, it's all about power, intensity and adrenaline for the next 500 miles," comments [Jimmie] Johnson. "The DAYTONA 500 fragrance has energy and confidence -- both great to have on or off the track."

photo from flickr user Monkey Magic.

routines

2006-12-05T21:39:00.000-06:00

It's funny how this completely messed with my head tonight. During the day they moved the little buttons we press on the elevator to be "outies" rather than "innies." Then I started thinking that they could have been like that for a long time but I just never noticed. Maybe it's a sign I need something to break up the usual, it could be a stairs day tomorrow.

automobiles

2006-11-29T22:21:00.000-06:00

Over the weekend Andrea and I rented Pixar's Cars. It was wonderful, you'd probably have to be in the right mood to watch it without kids around. We still laughed a lot.

I was most amazed at the way they bring the cars to life. Other Pixar movies like Toy Story, Incredibles, Nemo - those movies were built on objects that already have mouths and eyes, so making them talk and giving them a personality isn't that much of a jump. Cars don't have as much inherent personality and emotion about them, but these animators worked their wonders and I felt more joy and sorrow with these animated cars than for human characters in other not-so-great movies. Just incredible.

living online

2006-11-29T19:52:00.000-06:00

Over at Long Tail there's a great post on the lack of a "diary" feel that comes with chronicling one's life online. There's no little plasticky lock protecting those thoughts anymore. It's a quick read, and so is the Michael Kinsley Slate piece he links through to - Chris Anderson uses the word amusing to describe the article, which is fitting.

I disagree with Michael Kinsley on many levels on this, but the main one is that if I'm not friends with Doug, it doesn't offend me that he has a site that he tries to update with what he's doing... in fact his site is quite entertaining. That's the great thing about all these new ways of communicating - it's our choice what we look at. It's not as if CNN is jamming Doug's whereabouts down our throats.

video of the week #3

2006-11-28T19:31:00.000-06:00

Better than the original? I think so.

second edition - youtube video of the week

2006-11-17T07:18:00.000-06:00

Another show I don't remember, but this cartoon looks like it could have influenced a lot of kids for the better.

new circus

2006-11-14T22:47:00.000-06:00

Over the weekend we went to the Cirque du Soleil show here in DC. It was unreal, I truly felt like I had entered into a fantasy world for 2 and 1/2 hours. Music and visuals were perfectly timed to provide ups and downs of emotion, from sadness to laughter to wonderment. Juggling, tightrope acts, oversized trampolines, giants, and people flying through the air dangling from 5 helium balloons were all part of the act. The only slight disappointment was the ending, which felt more like a gymnastics meet than a circus. All things considered I was, and still am, in awe.

This was the first Cirque du Soleil I've seen, so I was unaware that the show takes place in a tent. That was a nice surprise - it felt authentic and intimate.

ouch

2006-11-12T23:55:00.000-06:00

via Pop Candy

youtube video of the week

2006-11-07T15:21:00.000-06:00

In our efforts to become a little more interesting/generalist, we're going to post a random video from youtube or similar site every week here. Here's our first try.

The world was probably a better place with this show around - Sledge Hammer. I've never seen it, but it looks fantastic:

applesauce

2006-11-02T16:24:00.000-06:00

In the spirit of the planning school of the web, I think it's fitting to share my response to assignment 10, so here are my ten selling propositions for apple supermarket posters. Some are better than others, and if I could re-submit I would change a few after looking at them again, but anyways, here they are:

1. The fruit Swiss Army knife. Baked. Fried. In a pie. Candied. Dried. Juiced. Crisped. Sauced. Wassailed. (16)

2. William Tell shot one off his son’s head with an arrow. Don’t try this at home. (16)

3. Bring out your inner Johnny Appleseed. (6)

4. We went to the orchard so you don’t have to. (10)

5. Wrapped in shiny edible Kevlar. (5)

6. Ditch the daily multi-vitamin. Have an apple instead. (9)

7. Save the globe. Have an apple wrapped in nature’s decomposable package. (11)

8. Even if you don’t eat it in time, throwing rotten apples against a tree is as good as it gets. (20)

9. It’s where apple juice comes from. Make some with ours and forget the word ‘concentrate’ on that bottle. (18)

10. We bet an apple that you can’t find every seed inside any one of these. (15)

knock knock

2006-10-30T09:07:00.000-06:00

A friend here at the office received these slang cards from knock knock. It's like the urban dictionary in color. I picked one out - "bunk":

an adjective - from a remark made by the congressman of Buncombe County, North Carolina, who defended an irrelevant speech by claiming he was speaking to Buncombe. Meanings are false, of poor quality, or nonsensical/absurd. Use it in a sentence - "I don't care if those haters say my squirrel collection is bunk."

I love the knock knock website - it's got that small company just-trying-to-make-it vibe with professional quality materials... a killer combo

chaos

2006-10-24T16:57:00.000-06:00

I wish I still lived in Austin for many reasons - this conference is the latest. Looks like a great lineup of speakers and panels.

It's not terribly expensive and it's one of the cooler cities around... the only thing that would make it better is to be held at ACL in-between acts.

it's the little things

2006-10-19T21:08:00.000-06:00

What a great way to wrap up a rough day.

how-tos

2006-10-19T17:31:00.000-06:00

This could be the hardest how-to guide ever written. Are they kidding?

frugal beer

2006-10-17T18:53:00.000-06:00

I'm a huge Trader Joe's fan - it's all food that you can trust to be good, and the staff is 10 times nicer than any other grocery store. Trader's is more fun than chore - they've hit on a new, non-obvious, useful idea.

I picked up this beer there the other day - it's o.k., actually a notch or two above ordinary. Packaging that doesn't overpromise is just great to see, it doesn't happen enough...

music

2006-10-12T22:17:00.000-06:00

Wired has a great section this month on the changing music industry- music reborn, with 2 articles that are must-reads:

Beck
Nettwerk

Excerpt from Nettwerk article: Industry insiders like McBride think the old model is as antiquated as the 8-track. "The future of the business isn't selling records," McBride says. "It's in selling music, in every form imaginable." And by establishing a series of so-called artist-run labels, McBride is creating the next-gen music company. "We become the management company, the publishing company, and the record company rolled into one," McBride says. "We take our 20 percent cut of the whole pie."
More important, he says, the new model frees him and his artists from the overgrown bureaucracy of the music industry, and that means more money for everyone.

It's great to see such different artists as Beck and BNL getting smart about this stuff, and even more refreshing to see them taking a chance on things that even 2 years ago wouldn't be considered, like sharing single instrument files of an album online and allowing for anyone to mix as they see fit. The artists are finally getting paid what they deserve, too, not just a miniscule $1 per disc sold.

On a similar note, Gareth wrote a great post about blogs and music here. Even HBS is getting in on this subject, with a study done by a couple of professors that found downloading music may not be all that bad.

(cartoon from the always fabulous toothpaste for dinner.)

spaghetti marshmallows

2006-10-12T19:04:00.000-06:00

So, we finally had the chance to play the spaghetti marshmallow tower game at our agency after coming back from the planning conference months ago. It went well - one team figured out the trick, and others hung from the ceiling - they said the rules did not exclude that as an option (connected to the ground via one really long spaghetti/tape combination). Good times were had by all.

the art of looking sideways

2006-10-04T08:48:00.000-06:00

Michael Bierut, partner at Pentagram, wrote a touching obituary over at Design Observer about a week ago for design legend and author Alan Fletcher. Quote of the month:

"I'd sooner do the same on Monday or Wednesday as I do on a Saturday or Sunday. I don't divide my life between labour and pleasure." - Alan Fletcher

more onion

2006-09-26T15:21:00.000-06:00

Struggling Blockbuster Eliminates Rental Fees

FT. LAUDERDALE, FL—The ailing video-store chain's "End Of Fees" promotion will also apply to its supply of video games, snacks, beverages, and any item found in the store.

This one made me cry. And happy to be on Netflix.

driving music

2006-09-26T08:06:00.000-06:00

We've talked about music and driving before here, and it's something I've been thinking about more recently as we've had a few weeks of 70-degrees and sunny here - lots of windows down and music blasting.

So I was thrilled to see my Urban Word of the Day email come in this morning with "top up music" defined:

September 26, 2006: top up music

The kind of music that you listen to only when the (convertible) top and all windows are up. Also known as 'closet music' it is the kind of music that you don't want anyone to know that you like.

The Black Eyed Peas came on Hits 1, but the top was down so I couldn't listen. BEP is my favourite top up music!

My top up music Nelly Furtado and some country artists... that probably says a lot more about me than what you'll hear me listening to windows down. Of course, there are others that will remain top up for now.

Who are yours?

oozing authenticity

2006-09-26T00:31:00.000-06:00

After reading this article in SI (Aug 7, '06) and watching the Riding Giants movie for the first time recently, I was amazed at how true to surfing these guys are - it's all that matters to them. One of the more telling parts of the movie described how they were depressed on the days when the waves weren't crashing in. Here's what it feels like to ride the big waves, with 2 great quotes from Laird Hamilton:

"That stuff you fill your mind with, you realize that all of it is pretty insignificant."

"If I scare myself once a day I'm a better person."

Brands could learn a lot from this... it's all about being authentic and true to yourself, that's why the movie resonates so strongly with me. They live to surf. That's it.

It's a big reason why brands like Starwood/Westin are successful - they live to provide a great hotel experience. Nothing more, nothing less. I'm sure there's more goodness and applicability here, we'll try to revisit in the future...

squirrels with cameras

2006-09-25T17:46:00.000-06:00

This squirrels with cameras gallery on flickr is a riot. Check out the photographer's site, too.

Taking the time to capture these images reminds me of a more friendly version of hunting. Rather than weaponry he uses a camera. Brilliant.

thanks to photojojo

generations at work

2006-09-22T06:03:00.000-06:00

I'm a huge fan of the USA TODAY snapshots -- this one from yesterday says so much about generations in the workforce right now. Even though the overall percentages are smaller with boomers, it's interesting how the boomers and millenials have a similar pattern emerge.

painting a day

2006-09-17T21:45:00.000-06:00

I've been meaning to post about this for awhile now. With my limited knowledge of the way the art world works, this artist's blog - A Painting a Day - seems like an incredible idea. He's really found a nice middle area where every piece of art is unique, and still fairly inexpensive. I love the peanut butter and jelly still life from a few days ago. According to this USA TODAY article, the artist gets more than enough to get by and keep doing the things he really likes.

The number of industries that blogs/the internet are changing keep mounting, and it's fun to watch unfold. Add art to the list of industries - music, books, film, newspapers, advertising, etc. - turned on their heads.

This story also shows the power of the auction format - it works so well for so many things, I wonder if it has a limit. One day we all may be working for eBay or the like, or at least finding work through them.

difference in what people say and what they do

2006-09-14T20:02:00.000-06:00

A friend brought this great quote back to my attention earlier today, as we're getting frustrated with something involving stats here:

"There are three types of lies - lies, damn lies, and statistics."

- Variously attributed to Benjamin Disraeli, Alfred Marshall, Mark Twain and many other dead people

well above average

2006-09-12T18:45:00.000-06:00

The school supplies are out in full force now, and I couldn't resist taking a pic this. It wouldn't look too bad on a t-shirt either... I'm a huge fan of the refillable flow arrow.

the onion on innovation

2006-09-06T21:08:00.000-06:00

Any Idiot Could Have Come Up With The Car

The Onion has a great piece this week that labels the car as one of the easiest invention of the 20th century. It's well worth the minute it takes to read.

"I thought I was living in an age of innovation. But if the car is the best thing we've been able to come up with in the past hundred years, then color me bored. Want to hear a better way to get around, off the top of my head? Okay, how about giant robots carrying us from place to place in human-sized satchels slung across their chests?"

I'm also really impressed with the site's "blog" button that let me grab that image/headline thing at the top... what a cool approach to give people an easy way to start talking about an article. It worked.

good news for people with 8.29 years of schooling

2006-08-30T02:08:00.000-06:00

Here's a fun little tool that allows you to test any website for readability. So I checked our latest posts out vs. the Decision Science News site, which definitely leans a little more academic, and the results came out as expected. My understanding of the system is that the Gunning Fog is the most telling number -- a rough estimate of the years of schooling a reader would need to understand. Someone needs 8.29 years of school to read and understand this site in its current form.

I've also taken the advice of reading weird shit from Richard H. to heart. This short story caught my eye at the library and it was well worth the read. It's an incredibly engaging tale about the love affair people have with books.

Here's a page from The House of Paper on pathways in books... a concept built around readability and the advantage of keeping it simple (like when writing a brief):

"'...a printed page is also a complicated drawing. It's a play of lines and tiny figures that flows from vowel to consonant, obeying its own laws of rhythm and composition, all based on the type size, the chosen font... candlelight lends a book an extra luster that brings out values and subtleties in a magical way. And the pathways become a delight.'

'What are pathways?' I asked...

'Well, that's an age-old discussion... nobody can be really sure whether it's the author's genius or the skill of the printer... for many readers, it's enough for them to look at the pathways to know whether a book is good and should be read.'

Delgado went over to one of his bookcases, took out an antique edition of Eugenie Grandet, and handed it to me. He told me to open it at any page and to look for vertical or diagonal channels created by the spaces between words. And it was true, I could see long pathways that led from line to line, crossed paragraphs, occasionally came to a halt, then branched off diagonally, from right to left or left to right, or cascaded vertically down.

'A writer who has no rhythm to his sentences cannt create that. If he mangles the language by putting two or three words with more than four syllables in a single sentence, he is bound to block the pathway and destroy the rhythm...'"

The readability numbers and the idea of pathways get at the same idea, but thinking about readability in terms of pathways is so much more engaging than looking at readability numbers or scores.

If I had to improve readability as an author or publisher, I'd much rather read about pathways as a way of framing the problem. All this makes me think twice about some recent briefs I've written that have framed communications problems... they've ended up somewhere more towards the numbers, when the briefs could have been more pathway-like.

strollers

2006-08-30T00:53:00.000-06:00

It's funny how a stroller can say so much about parent and child. Keep in mind this is coming from someone with limited interaction with strollers and the like... but it seems the tricked out one on the top more often goes hand-in-hand with a Suburban/Tahoe-type car and borderline-spoling parents, while the simple stroller goes with a Honda/Mini kind of car and the kind of parents that are a little more relaxed.

And I love this quote on gender stereotyping dug out by Iconoculture:

"Women are interested in me ... because I'm a man pushing a stroller. This simple act, I've discovered, transforms me into a near saint in the eyes of society. Grandparents, young couples, moms - it seems the entire population cannot pass by without complimenting me, or at least smiling." - Bill Eville on "baby-carriage bliss," Parents 6.06

3D font

2006-08-23T11:58:00.000-06:00

This font is incredible. It's ideal for writing a brief on a donut store or sandwich shop (for some reason, they all look like they could be eaten to me).

is ted really that happy to see me

2006-08-22T15:09:00.000-06:00

I took this pic just before getting on a plane down to Miami for the planning conference last week. I was not happy to see these over and over while sitting there waiting for the plane to arrive from wherever it was, for about 5 hours (you know it's bad when they take down your flight info and orig. takeoff time down from the sign in the background).

In an effort to stay away from angry-bloggerness, I sat on this for awhile. Stuff like this that tries to be cute during the good times becomes annoying when things go wrong. It's the antithesis of YouTube and flickr downtime messages/coloring contests. Life will be better once the flickr/YouTube way of dealing with problems enters into bricks-and-mortar businesses. How hard would it be to change out the text on the signs when a plane is delayed - "Ted is sorry you have to wait forever and a day."

should advertising mirror reality?

2006-08-20T20:05:00.000-06:00

The ad above, which is part of Ford's new "Bold Moves" campaign, starts out very formulaic, with the picture-perfect family-- two parents, two kids, and a dog-- spending a leisurely day together, but what is particularly salient is the ending. The father is dropped off at his apartment after thanking his apparent ex-wife for letting him spend the day with them. Hmm...

Why was this surprising? With divorce such a common occurrence in society, one would think that marketers would not feel the need to shy away from the issue. However, an article last week in The New York Times, which highlighted Ford's treatment of the subject, suggests that perceptions are changing and many companies are becoming more comfortable reflecting the once stigmatized issue in their advertisements.

“Divorce is so common that I don’t think people view it as sad and depressing anymore,” said Allen P. Adamson, managing director at the New York office of Landor Associates, a corporate identity consulting company owned by the WPP Group. “It’s on every movie, every TV show. There aren’t any more ‘Leave It to Beaver’ families around.”

On one hand, it is admirable that Ford and others are attempting to more accurately reflect the realities of their customers' lives, but the question then becomes-- is this really what people want? Mr. Adamson says there aren't any more 'Leave It to Beaver' families, and he may be right. That actual dynamic may be waning, but what about the idea of the family archetype. After all, aspiration is the bedrock on which the majority of advertising is built. Any thoughts?

vanity plates

2006-08-16T23:46:00.000-06:00

Up here in the traffic that is Northern Virginia and DC, we can pass the time wondering what people are thinking putting vanity plates on their cars... most of the time it's trying to figure out what they mean. Design Observer has a wonderful rant on the situation:

The ubiquity of the vanity plate makes for a discordant kind of poetry: it’s a function of brevity and bad spelling, a terse kind of haiku that’s oddly self-referential. Sometimes, the message being transmitted is merely a reflection of the car itself: “ITS EASY” for a Porsche Boxster or “BIG ENOF” for a Ford Explorer or “DEAD LEG” for a 1973 Wolkswagon minibus. Yet this is just the tip of the vanity-plate phenomenon — a custom that, come to think of it, seems ideally poised for the short attention span of the American public.

(I really have no idea what the above IRPOSTL plate means... things like this haunt my drive every day, but it does make the time go by)

yuppie rap meets YouTube

2006-08-16T21:05:00.000-06:00

This viral ad created by BBH for Smirnoff's new Raw Tea has been bouncing around on YouTube for well-over a week now, and according to Adweek has garnered more than 350,000 views (and that was as of 8/9). I suppose it is debatable whether or not it is a "good ad," but it is certainly an excellent use of an increasingly powerful medium.

Speaking of... Frank Barnako had a interesting post on his MarketWatch Media Blog about how the introduction of IPTV (Internet Protocol TV) from major telcos like AT&T (T) and Verizon (VZ) could create a major paradigm shift, from which YouTube and other non-traditional content providers could emerge as the biggest winners.

long awkward pose

2006-08-14T07:47:00.000-06:00

I just discovered this lovely experiment in human behavior - Long Awkward Pose.

It's simple, really. People look foolish when posing for a picture. So tell your loved ones you would like to take their photo... then secretly videotape them the whole time.

Hat tip to Photojojo.

designer dogs

2006-08-10T00:56:00.000-06:00

We're going to do our best Cute Overload! impression for this post. Designer, hybrid, mashup, whatever you want to call them, dogs are all over the place around Washington. Labradoodles are by far the most popular ones, and I just saw a Huskie/Australian Shepherd mix at the pet store going for $400.

It seems like a few years back the breeders got together and decided to take a dog of 2 breeds and repackage it as a hybrid dog. It's funny what dropping a word like designer or hybrid in there can do.