Curiosity Not Passion

I was sitting in a lime green room with a drop ceiling. My guidance counselor said, “You should follow your passion”. I thought, OK, great! The only problem was I didn’t have one. 

Passion is a word that carries the weight of certainty. Passion burns with a lot of heat. But passion can also run out of fuel before the destination is reached. 

If she had asked me instead, “What are you curious about”? That was a question I knew the answer to. I had a bunch of answers to that one. 

Curiosity is evergreen and self-perpetuating. Curiosity invites exploration and experimentation. Following fascinations can lead you into new worlds. One interest fuels another and they expand into the realm of possibility.

Even now, we are prodded from every angle to follow our passion. The media says it. The business book authors say it. They say it on Shark Tank. I am certain that there are thousands of brilliant businesses, products and careers that were never launched because someone hit the “passion” wall. 

I'll bet curiosity has launched thousands more.

Idea Muscles

It’s been a while since I worked out. Things are starting to get a little soft. I know when it's time to get back at it because it gets progressively harder to entertain the thought of actually doing anything physical. A body in motion…

I found that coming up with creative ideas works the same way. The more I don’t do it, the harder it becomes. Creative thinking is like a muscle. Just like lifting weights, there are exercises I do that make it stronger. When I don’t do them, my creativity sits on the couch and orders in pizza.

Inspiration doesn’t pop in your head like a lightbulb. You have to go out and hunt it down. I feed myself with graphic design on Pinterest, branding trend on Medium, hit my retail go-tos in Manhattan. Whenever I get a thought, any thought, I click to my Google Sheets tab and write that sucker down. I brain dump. I have to get 5 ideas down before I can take a breather. 

If you’re stuck, if you are feeling a little vacant, get that idea muscle to the gym. Lift some. Inspiration isn’t magic, you have to put in the work.

The Road To Innovation Is Short

Faster Pussycat

The pace of business today is brutally fast. To compete, it is critical that companies embrace innovation as a core competency. They must engage in it constantly - iterative design, research and development flowing through a never-ending pipeline.

12 Degrees of Separation

In the pre-Industrial Age, the distance between the maker and the product was very short - maybe literally an arms length away. The maker also had a direct line to the person who was going to use it. In fact, they probably lived in the same town. 

But since then, with larger companies, the concept and the final product can be more than a dozen functional divisions removed from each other, all in the same company. Strategy, finance, consumer insights, trend, product development, merchandising, marketing, sourcing, manufacturing, distribution, retail, the list goes on. 

Game of Telephone

For companies, innovation and product development can be like the game of telephone. There are so many people and phases in the process that the original idea gets lost in the chain of communication by the final stage.

Small = Agile

So, how do large companies win in innovation? By mimicking what small companies do. Small equals agile. Smaller companies have shorter chains of command, short decision making matrices. They have shorter timelines. They have limited resources, so they are highly motivated to be efficient. Stakeholders have greater autonomy, so if they want to do something, they just can go ahead and do it. They don’t have to get 15 stakeholders, 5 divisions, and 3 VPs to agree first.

Distance is Death

The problem is distance. Distance leads to crumby innovation. This pertains to physical distance as well as lengths of time. They both lead to the dumbing down of ideas by degrees.

The traditional innovation approach is to gestate an idea in an R&D group, then hand it off to a Product Development team, who in turns hands off to Sourcing and then a Manufacturing group, etc.

As an innovative concept creeps down the road from one functional department to the next, little by little, the purity of an idea is chipped away. Sacrifices are made for materials, cost, factory efficiency, shipping, retail realities. At times the “innovation” that reaches market has little resemblance to the original concept - if it makes it there at all.

To preserve an innovative concept, the distance between the idea and the final manifestation of it has to be as short as possible.

New innovation approaches call for cross-functional teams to be present throughout the entire process. Multiple stages of review and approval can be condensed and happen simultaneously. This constant representation of disciplines in the pipeline insures that the concept remains pristine and that any divergence is immediately apparent to all stakeholders. This increased transparency has been proven to drastically reduce innovation mortality rates.

Idea Sex

Cross-functional teams can also be great for innovation concept generation. An example of this happened at 3M. Cross-functional teams were reorganized to share physical offices and departments. One day, the adhesive product development team, let’s call them “the glue guys”, was looking to develop a stronger glue. In the formulation process they mistakenly developed a glue that was weaker than the original and could be removed very easily.

It just so happened that the glue guys where working in the same room as the “notepad guys”. The notepad guys were looking for new ways to pin up notes on a board. And the glue guys had this new glue that was removeable. But it was just sticky enough to put a note up on the wall. It was because these two groups were shacked up with each other that the Post-it Note was born.

Fittingly, the Post-It Note has since become the go-to tool for innovation brainstorming sessions around the globe.

Start With Why, Not How

Historically, innovation started with what the factory can do. Some new technological invention would happen in machining. Then you would figure out what products you could make with it. It would start with: “we can make this” – “now, what can we do with it”. Pringles came from tennis ball cylinder packaging in just this way.

New theories and processes for innovation are more “needs driven”. They start with a problem that needs a solution and then precipitate the development of machining or technology to bring it into existence. You start with the problem and end with how-to-make it.

Gantt vs. Slinky

There are different ways to get to a given result. Some are linear, some not. Let’s say you are mapping out an innovation project. Start by imagining the project as a Gantt chart. Imagine a linear progression of a project from start to finish encompassing all the sequential stages. The steps are laid out in overlapping progress bars in two-dimensional space.

Now visualize the innovation project as a Slinky. Imagine a project’s progression seen on its side as a curly-que, more circular in structure, continuously overlapping itself. Does it veer up or down? In three-dimensional space, the “end” result may not be in the linear direction out to the right it - might in fact be above or below. Or even behind.

Insight + Context = Innovation

The principles of Design Thinking are also being brought to bear on innovation. Design Thinking employs empathy for the context of the problem. It leverages creativity in the development of insights and concepts, analyzing various solutions and then applies them to the problem.

By using observational techniques, Design Thinking can uncover problems and issues as well as opportunities that are not immediately apparent. This kind of approach to innovation encourages us to believe in possibility and to think in the abstract. It succeeds with a less linear and more iterative approach.

The New Thing

The market is constantly being saturated with re-makes, re-hashes and sequels to established products and services. In order to break through the noise, truly innovative solutions are necessary. Adopting a new approach to how you shepherd your ideas through the product development pipeline will help retain the integrity of your concepts. It will insure that you hit the market with true disruptive force.

Remember, we put a man on the moon before we put wheels on luggage. Innovation is not always linear. But the road to it is short.

Image credit: Christian Heilmann @ flickr.com

It's All About You

I met with a prospective client recently. She’s a Harvard educated powerhouse, an accomplished musician and recording artist, has a wellness brand and is exploring starting a museum - from scratch.

In our meeting she shared the personal motivation and meaning behind her music, her wellness practice, her museum idea. She shared how they were all integral to one another, synaptically connected. Her musical/creative/wellness/education narrative was important to capture in branding them!

While capturing her philosophy does fit into the equation, I am encouraging her to shift her focus. The motivations of the customers for each of these businesses are quite different. One wants to buy a song. Another wants to de-stress with body work. Another wants to take the kids someplace that will fascinate them for an afternoon.

Your brand narrative needs to capture your passions, but what's key is how you will fulfill your customers desires. Great brands weave the two seamlessly together in a motivating and emotionally evocative way.

photo credit: flickr: rafa_luque

You Are A Package

I’ve done a lot of work in consumer packaged goods. The biggest challenge is getting consumers to choose your product from all the others on the shelf. Recently, in working with entrepreneurs and mid-sized businesses I have noticed how many of the guiding principles of CPG translate directly to their branding challenges. Here are three:

Shelf Pop: When you are on display, as an individual or business, you have to know what your competition looks like. What shape are they? What colors do they use? Iconography or photography? Bottle or box? You need to differentiate yourself in a way that makes you jump off the shelf when a purchase decision is being made.

Communication Hierarchy: At most, you get 3 levels of communication. Brand, variant and flavor. You have to make hard choices about what you want your customer to know. What motivates them? A functional or an emotional benefit? Are you going to make them look sexier? Make them smarter? Define what your label says. 

Shopper Journey: How do customers shop for you? Impulse buy at checkout? Always right next to the sunglasses? Are you with your competition or are you charting new territory in a different aisle to stand out? Create an intuitive path to help people find you.

These days, the physical and digital worlds are packed with brands to choose from. Your goal is getting picked. Becoming someones favorite. How will you make it from the shelf to the cart?

You Are A Media Laboratory

The digital marketing guru Gary Vaynerchuk said “Every one of you is a media company.” Today we need to add “…and a media laboratory.”

The explosion of social media and our ability to communicate with huge audiences at the touch of a screen is not news. But the number of new media “shiny objects” is growing and more are launching every day.

Streaming video is currently The New Thing. Everyone is rushing to figure out how to best leverage the plethora of platforms. While it used to be just YouTube channels or Vimeo, now it’s Snapchat, Vine, Periscope, Blab, Facebook Live, Amazon Video Direct, the list goes on. 

In addition to honing product offerings and messaging, brands and entrepreneurs need to continually evaluate new platforms to determine if they can facilitate their ability create value for their audience, or are ultimately just a time suck.

Because today every one of you is a media laboratory.

photo credit: flickr.com: George Redgrave

Snackable Content + You

These days everyone is busy. When people are asked what one thing they want more of, they invariably say “time”. 

Things are changing because we are all in such a hurry. Even eating is changing. Studies now show up to 1/5 of all meals eaten in the US are eaten in the car. It’s the decade of the snack!

Because we have less time, content is getting shorter. It started with blogs vs. books, then twitter vs. blogs, songs vs. albums, Snapchat vs. YouTube, Periscope vs. webinars, Vine vs. Vimeo, you get it.

But shorter doesn’t necessarily mean better. In fact Noah Kagan wrote in the Huffington Post that “The longer the content, the more shares it gets, with 3,000-10,000 word pieces getting the most average shares”. Google also ranks longer, more in-depth articles higher in search results. In general, long form content is intended to educate, inform and foster deep thinking while short-form content helps your business connect and engage with its audience.

But there are real benefits for you to be creating snackable content. It takes less time, so you can do it more often. It builds the content creation habit. It’s more shareable, so your chances of broader exposure are higher. Most importantly, consistency increases engagement. By keeping it short, you can publish more consistently and in doing that, you’re showing your audience that you value their time. 

And all we really want is more time.

photo credit: flickr.com: Uncalno Tekno

5 Reasons Your Brand Should Be On Pinterest

Although only in development in 2009, Pinterest quickly grew to become one of the most popular platforms for sharing visual content. According to Alexa, Pinterest is now the 29th most visited website in the world, (13th in the U.S.) making it second only to Instagram as a visual discovery network. While less than half of online brands include Pinterest in their list of their digital marketing tools, more businesses are investing in the platform every year, particularly those in industries that rely heavily on visual appeal, such as interior design, fashion and travel.

1 - Influence Purchase Decisions

Visual content is a critical part of almost any digital marketing strategy, particularly in the case of B2C businesses. Content such as infographics and other visual presentations have been proven to have a dramatic influence on purchase decisions, and many Pinterest users rely on the platform. Engagement levels with visual media, such as the images and infographics on the virtual pin boards, are particularly high, with the majority of users having made a purchase after viewing a product presentation on the network.

2 - Use Social Selling

Many social networks have chosen to integrate e-commerce features, allowing users to make purchases directly through the network in question. Pinterest is no exception, and the new Buyable Pins feature will allow your customers to make purchases using the Pinterest app, available for devices running iOS or Android in the US. Pinterest provides its own checkout and payment system as well, and it doesn't cost anything for retailers.   

3 - Strengthen Your Brand

Appealing imagery provides a powerful way to strengthen your brand and give people something to recognize and remember you by. Best of all, you don't even need to have a particularly active profile that needs to be updated on a regular basis. You can simply populate your pinboards with as little or as much content as you like but, provided your content is useful and engaging in nature, it will eventually get noticed. Of course, Pinterest is not without its strong social element either, since it gives you the opportunity to comment on pins, particularly those where your brand is mentioned, in order to become part of a fast-growing social community. It’s worthwhile to note that 39% of retailers report that they have changed their social networking behavior in some way due to Pintrest.

4 - Increased Content Exposure

Pinterest has grown incredibly quickly to enjoy millions of views per day, and while it's certainly not up to the level of Facebook or Twitter, it is one of the most far-reaching visual platforms of all. Simply put, there are few better places to get more exposure for your visual content than Pinterest. In fact, some brands even get more traffic to their websites from the network than from Facebook. Pinterest also makes for an invaluable accessory to any blog or website that relies heavily on visual appeal, such as fashion, retail, food or travel. As Pinterest continues to grow at an unprecedented rate, the increased content exposure it affords is hard to pass up.

5 - Boost Search Rankings

Sharing your content and talking about your products on the mainstream social networks can be an effective marketing tactic, but it's not going to do much for your exposure in the search engines which are, after all, where most Web traffic originates from. However, by properly optimizing your Pinterest profile and the content you post, you can make a significant impact on the search engine results pages as well as on the website's own search engine. You can get a better idea of which keywords to target by using the automated suggestions provided when you search for a topic using the on-site search function.

Final Words

As a growing social network with a relatively unique purpose, Pinterest is a promising platform for marketers. A solid visual content marketing strategy, powered by the likes of Pinterest and Instagram, can help foster engagement with your brand and increase conversion rates. Best of all, the platform is also completely free to use, and it doesn't require anything near the time investment demanded by marketing on Facebook or Twitter.

360º Branding: The Growth of Virtual Reality

With the Oculus Rift slated for release on March 28 and various competing devices set to follow suit in the coming months, brands are starting to consider the marketing potential afforded by the new technology. Although it might take some time to become truly mainstream, the growth of virtual reality (VR) promises to revolutionize home entertainment and provide advertisers with new opportunities for reaching out to their target audiences.

From a practical perspective, VR has major implications for consumer interaction with brands. Some of the world's most popular brands have already adopted VR to create virtual experiences for their customers. For example, car manufacturer Volvo allows potential customers to take virtual reality test drives, while hotel chain Marriott uses VR to 'teleport' people to various branches around the country. The possibilities are endless. There's little doubt that the growth of VR can benefit businesses across a broad range of industries including hospitality, travel, e-commerce, fashion and real estate among many others.

E-Commerce

Brands involved in particularly visual industries, such as travel or fashion, have been among the quickest to start experimenting with VR technology. To date, their utilizations of VR offer a immersive, yet somewhat unimaginative experience to shoppers similar to physically being in a shop where you can interact with products on offer. For example, US-based marketing and business consultation firm Sapient revealed its VR experience whereby users could virtually walk around a store and add items to their shopping carts. But this just skims the surface of what is theoretically possible. Imagine virtually trying on a pair of Nike shoes while standing in an Olympic Stadium surrounded by thousands of fans chanting your name. You get the idea.

VR will be of particular interest to e-commerce brands selling products that require a degree of configuration and customization, such as fitted kitchens or bathrooms. In such cases, consumers using VR technology will be far better equipped to visualize products as though they were in the showroom itself. Similarly, VR presents great potential to automotive brands by allowing consumers to take a closer look at vehicle interiors, while estate agents will be able to provide virtual walkthroughs of the properties they have for sale – all from the comfort of your couch.

Storytelling

Ever since its inception, VR has primarily been seen as a technology aimed towards creating an immersive experience in video games, but there's no reason why brands can't use it as well to create deeper and more meaningful experiences for their customers. As is the case with any new medium, filmmakers and publishers alike have started considering the potential of VR for the purposes of storytelling. However, creating a VR 'movie', while undoubtedly an interesting concept, requires very different methods to filming in 2D. Unsurprisingly, major streaming services such as Hulu and Netflix have been quick to adopt VR and experiment with its possibilities. For example, Netflix collaborated with Oculus to create an app that allows users to walk into a virtual living room and watch content in VR.

Remote Work

Virtual reality also has some interesting implications for people's professional and academic lives. For example, brands may be able to use the new technology to help facilitate remote working and improved collaboration by approximating physical interactions. For example, rather than having to be physically present at a business meeting, VR could allow teams spread out across the globe to collaborate by way of virtual avatars a VR meeting room – or any imaginable location.

Immersive Experiences

Although VR has undoubtedly made enormous strides in the last couple of years, the technology is still very much in its infancy. Like any new technology, VR might be extremely successful or it could go the way of the 3D TV and prove to be little more than a passing fad. Nonetheless, brands would do well to take VR into consideration and review its potential for advertising and consumer interaction.

After all, if ever there was an opportunity to really create a truly immersive brand experience, this is it. Brands now need to think of creating entire sensory worlds, rather than layering onto an existing one like a retail store, a billboard, a bus or event. They can now bring to ‘life’ an intentionally controlled, orchestrated and designed experience. They can create a completely branded reality.

photo credit: University of Texas Knight Center for Journalism @flickr.com

Naming: Personal Brand vs. Business Brand

One of the most difficult and important decisions for an entrepreneur is how to brand their company. Should they use their personal name or create a company name? As individuals brand their solo or small enterprise concerns and engage in inbound marketing and content development choosing a name becomes a future-defining milestone.

It's a hot topic.

It’s a particularly hot topic in the digital marketer and personal brand coaching arena. So, Iet’s outline some of the pros and cons of the personal vs. business brand conundrum. In my book, the main three are scalability, flexibility and sellability.

One of the major pros of personal brands, those named after the person, is that they are flexible. A personal brand can evolve with you as you grow and change. As a beginning entrepreneur, you can start off as a marketing guru and then evolve to selling small batch cosmetics if you want to. Personal brands are also ideal if you want to start a speaking career. They are perfect for one-person industries, coaches, trainers, authors, artists, designers and strategists.

There are drawbacks.

The cons of a personal brand are equally significant. Many people don’t realize what they are until it’s too late and they are too far down the path of development. First, the name won’t immediately communicate what it is you do. A tagline can help here, but it is necessary to use it absolutely everywhere - and it’s generally a mouthful. So, you’ll need to work long and hard for people to associate your name with what it is you provide. Initially, it’s also a challenge for SEO and SEM, an important consideration.

The most formidable challenge in a personal name brand is that it is tough to scale. Other employees may help you with specific tasks but they are inherently not ‘you’. Customers will always want to deal with ‘the name’. What if Guy Kawasaki’s or Gary Vaynerchuk’s second-in-command showed up for a podcast interview? Disappointing, right? It’s also hard to sell a personal brand. You can’t sell ‘you’ and you obviously wouldn’t want to sell your name.

Trading time for money.

Lastly, with a personal brand you are essentially trading time for money - unless you develop a huge library of independent and evergreen products that will be your main revenue source.

One great thing about a “business name” brand is that it can communicate what it does easily in the first mention of its name. This makes attracting customers, marketing, SEO and SEM easier. Much easier. Business brands are easily scalable. They are ideal if you ever decide to seek funding or bring on partners as you can offer an equity stake in the name. Banks tend to like them better too. And who doesn’t like easy access to capital to grow? As the flipside to personal brands, business brands are much easier to sell when you want to exit.

On the downside, a business brand is harder and more complex to build. It needs to be more plan-fully executed and can’t morph its offer as easily as a personal brand can. It’s harder to differentiate a business brand from the competition - which is why all that up-front business planning is so important. But the name can help telegraph that differentiation. Also, with a business brand any employee has the full potential to do damage to your brand once it is out of your hands. So business brand names are good for scaling but bad for control as they grow.

It is necessary to develop a “brand personality” whether you are a business brand or a personal brand. A brand personality that consumers can identify with and come to trust is critical no matter what your scale is – and I’d venture the bigger you are, the more important it is. I’ve expanded on this topic in my article “Big Brand Punch”.

Mixing the two.

There is one more option: mixing the two. Create a business brand name - and spread the word about what your business offers and become the highly visible “lead” individual for that business. Think Elon Musk, Richard Branson, Steve Jobs. By blogging, speaking, interviewing, writing and attending conferences the awareness of ‘you’ grows as you grow your business. But be sure to include others in your business as soon as possible to dilute undue reliance on you and your appearance as the only manifestation of the brand.

Plan for the future at the beginning.

Naming a business ultimately comes down to what the ambitions are to scale and if the founder will eventually want to sell and exit. For the entrepreneur, there is no definitively right or wrong answer and a course correction is never completely out of the question. They just become more cumbersome, costly and confusing to the customer as time goes by.

Big Brand Punch: Personal Branding & Brand Personality

We hear it all the time.

 “I’m working on developing my personal brand”.

Why are people striving to become more like brands, when corporate brands are desperately looking to humanize themselves. Aren’t these divergent movements?

It‘s about survival.

It used to be a business was a specialist worker, a butcher, a cobbler, a carpenter, a cook. With the industrial revolution, businesses scaled and became companies: Woolworths, Macy's, Proctor & Gamble, Johnson & Johnson, Ford. 

Many companies have emotional equities that grew out of the personality of an original founder. The result of this is an unshakable authenticity. For example, Colonel Sanders of KFC, Martha Stewart or Ralph Lauren.

Brands that don't have visible founders strive to invent brand personalities and archetypes through characters, celebrities or humor like the Marlboro Man, GIECO’s gecko, Tony the Tiger, Ronald McDonald or Michael Jordan for Nike.

Why do they do it?

Brand authenticity is very hard to accomplish without “a face” associated with it. Someone to believe and to believe in. Not having a face creates mistrust. In fact, for most people, the term "faceless corporation" is associated with greed, resource pillage and disregard for human needs and dignity in the pursuit of profit. Think BP, IBM, Citibank, Exxon, Comcast, Merrill Lynch. While brands with faces; Virgin, Apple and Tesla, create a sense of ease, familiarity and foster a deeper level of trust.

When it comes right down to it, people trust and identify with brands with human characteristics. It’s what we do as humans. We anthropomorphize things. What is the value in bestowing human characteristics on a non-human entity? Simple. Studies have found that brands that adhere to brand personality archetypes are twice as successful than those that do not. [Boom, drops the mic.]

So how do companies define a personality?

Science. Corporations and brand strategy agencies use consumer insight research, macro and micro socio-economic trend, focus groups and behavioral audits to uncover the human characteristics a brand possesses. "If X-brand walked into a party, What gender are they? What age? What are they wearing? What are they drinking? Talking about?” “If X-brand was an animal what kind of animal would it be?" Brand strategists have been sharpening these exploratory research techniques for decades and know exactly how to dig into our psyches. I know, I’ve been in the focus group labs where it happens. 

Big branding gloves.

Brands also utilize a variety of strategic brand positioning tools. The most common being a “brand pyramid”, where the aspects of a brand are mapped in a pyramid shape. The bottom layers establish the functional attributes and benefits. The upper layers clarify the emotional benefits, brand personality and brand essence, the singular fundamental idea that captures what is at a brands emotional core.

Additional strategic brand foundation tools include mission and vision statements, brand values, positioning statements, aspirational consumer target maps – the list goes on. This work can fill volumes. The purpose of this strategic foundation is to assure the consistency and efficacy of brand equities, messaging, advertising, packaging, visual design – essentially every brand touch point. They also set in stone the ethos of what a brand stands for, who it’s customers are, what it delivers, what problem it is solving.

Focused brand strategies and finely tuned brand personalities resonate with consumers. Brand loyalty and affinity are achieved by making the brand feel like an old friend. This is where brand evangelists are made. If you do it right, it can be very lucrative. Just ask Apple. Nike. Rolex. BMW. Some consumers even associate their own personal identities with brands living in that rarified air.

The game changer.

There was a time when workers used to be defined by their jobs and brand affiliations. It used to be: he’s an IBM man, she’s a P&G gal, those are Met Life guys.

With the changes brought about by the internet and the dawn of the global economy, millions have been swept out of employment with corporations and set adrift. They no longer have a workplace, external brands, geography or affiliations to help them anchor their identity. The only hope of survival is self-employment in a new digital world with no roadmap, no borders and no limits. We are becoming a nation of free agents.

But while it has erased so much security, the internet has also leveled the business playing field. Now an individual can have all the media reach, technological capability and infrastructure any large company.  

Fighting above your weigh class.

Reclaiming Americas Soul: Our Social/Industrial rEvolution

I was listening to a TEDx talk by a trend consultant friend recently and she mentioned how she thought that our consumption model is broken and that America is missing its soul. I think she’s right. But, how did that happen? Where are we headed now and what does it mean for the brand landscape?

America came into its own during the Industrial Revolution. Our factories, workers, products and standard of living was the envy of much of the world. Other countries wanted to be us once. Whether they really want to admit that now or not.

We lived the Industrial Model. 

But, over time our desire to own more and more things in order to attain our ever-inflating image of prosperity, drove us to need products to be less expensive. Less expensive because Americans middle-class wages have stagnated for the last 30 years, as former Labor Secretary Robert Reich pointed out in his eye-opening video “The Truth About the Economy”. Sadly, our wages have not kept pace with our appetite to own more things.

So, we out-sourced our production overseas. But the price we paid was dear. Entire industries in the US crumbled. Furniture making, textiles, steel production, automobiles, electronics, the list goes on and on. Physically and culturally it decimated our heartland. Look no farther than Detroit, but we all know the list is much longer.

We began to discover that not making things hollows out your soul. 

We’ve become a nation of middle-men and service providers. In fact, 86% of jobs in America are in services and 14% are in goods production and manufacturing. But there are huge numbers of our population who don’t have the skill sets or the desire to become white-collar workers. So the collective pride of the worker begins to die along with their cities.

The white collar workers find their work rooted in technology. Entire industries are living in the digital domain. Employees, initially enthralled by the computer and its magic have become surrounded, ruled and overwhelmed by the technology they once coveted. 

At the same time, big box stores became the norm and Mom & Pop businesses disappeared from Main Street. Every town in America looking like every other town - the same collection of retailers, only with different weather.

But there is a renaissance happening. 

People have begun to want to create something they can touch. Something you can’t send in an email. There is a new makers movement, a movement of people wanting to get back in touch with making actual things. Reviving dying trades, artisan skills, mills and factories. There are printers, wood workers, bicycle makers, textile designers and manufacturers, blacksmiths, craft brewers and jewelers.

People driven by a need to create. Their souls are fed by it. To produce and distribute goods bound by an ethos of sustainability, craftsmanship and local trade. Market places, pop-up stores and curated websites (digital, I know) are springing up with a decidedly anti-chain, pro-Mom & Pop, pro-local personality bent. Consumers want a human face and a name to go along with a product. For it to come from a place that they know how to find on a map. And most importantly, todays consumer wants these products. They value a true story.

Witness the Social/Industrial rEvolution being born. 

Big brands are desperately trying to find a voice for themselves that is credible in this new model. Trying to use social media and acquisitions to make themselves appear much smaller, with a human face and a genuine narrative. Take Clorox’s purchase of Burt’s Bees for example. But for the most part the consumer public is seeing through the facade. The only way to sound local is to be local. The way to appear small is to be small. The way to be hand-crafted is to get your hands dirty. 

This new model is built on quality over quantity, knowing where its materials came from, knowing where it was made, knowing a little about the person who made it. With all the digital connectivity we have at our disposal, what we have come to miss most of all, and want to get back is connection. 

Physical and emotional connection is the heart of the Social/Industrial rEvolution.

This rEvolution is about being true. Brands that embrace this evolution and live by its ethos will win a place of honor in consumers lives. Because we want to feel we are once again makers, doers and creators. We want to truly own our success. We want to play a part in reclaiming Americas soul.

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ADDENDUM: On the flip side of this coin we have the "4th Industrial Revolution" which is the digital evolution of our society and economy. Thanks to John Hawthorne, for sharing this article that comes at our societal evolution from a different perspective.

Image Credit:  Anna Zoromski/Miles @ flickr.com

"Brand" is Tired

The word “brand” is tired. It is no longer inspiring to the savvy client. It used to be you could get clients jazzed and hungry for change by merely uttering the word in association with their products. They desperately desired to be a real “brand”. 

But “brand” has become a hackneyed term, part of pop culture where every teen on Facebook is nurturing their own personal brand. But I would argue that because of this, having a clearly communicated brand is even more important. The expectations of the consumer have been raised. But “brand” is too small a word to describe what the world expects from a product or service company anymore.

What I see time again, even with Fortune 100 clients, is a brand ecosystem or brand experience that is fractured. Considering the totality of a brands equities and representing them consistently at every consumer touchpoint has gotten harder to achieve as the range of touchpoints has grown exponentially over the last couple decades. Even the biggest brands are often confusing their customers. 

What we are really being tasked to do for our clients is “experience design”. This encompasses the whole of a brand, all equities and all consumer interactions. It is our job to come in with fresh eyes and tell them what is broken and what we need to do to fix it. To perform beyond the brief. Show them what could be.

In the world of consumer goods, packaging is the big gun. Experience with a capital “E”. Packaging is a touchpoint that triggers all of the senses. Sight, touch, smell, sound and (in some cases) taste. More than any other, packaging is the equity that keeps on giving. It lives on the consumers home, in their cupboard, on their desk, visible on their shelf long after the purchase decision was made. It is the one equity that can, if well executed, drive trial when a consumer encounters the brand for the first time at a store. We must remember that up to 65% of purchase decisions are made when the consumer is standing in front of the shelf, in that final 3 seconds. 

If consumers are overwhelmed and are not choosing our clients offering that is our fault. It is because of an inconsistent brand strategy and an articulation that is not differentiated from its competition. You have to throw a big rock to make a splash these days. 

When brands develop, execute and guard focused equities and a clear strategy is when they win. It is our job in design to be bold, be different and create a remarkable “experience”.  

Because creating a “brand” is no longer enough.

Credits: Image Source: Flickr.com: Adam Goode

Designers Are Like Cows

While I was at Landor Associates I instituted an inspiration forum called Pasture. The name was inspired by a passage in Gordon MacKenzie's incredible book "Orbiting The Giant Hairball". 

In one passage he describes how the majority of the time cows spend creating milk is spent in the pasture, eating grass and soaking up the sun and air. Only a small percentage is actually "producing" the milk attached to the milking machine in the barn. So grazing in the pasture is of incredible importance to creating milk, but this invisible part of the process is often overlooked and forgotten. 

In Pasture everyone in the agency, not just designers, brought to a "show and tell" anything they were inspired by, a website, a book, a song, a work of art, a design and shared it with the group at a free pizza lunch. The incredibly wide range of inspiration was energizing to people in every functional area in the agency. 

As creative leaders we know that the most disparate influences can find their way into design work to great effect. Looking at only competitive design influences and ideas is the quickest way to get more of the same cliches and well-trodden solutions.

We all know that shopping the competition and looking at award winning work is one way of finding inspiration, but looking outside of a category - far outside - can lead to the most innovative ideas. Designers have that special capacity to take the most divergent input and synthesize it into an elegant and breathtaking piece of work. 

Giving designers that much-needed time to metaphorically graze, experience the sunlight and breath fresh air is the best way to keep them from coming up "dry" at milking time.

So yes, designers are like cows. But hey, it's not my analogy, it's Gordon’s and very true indeed.

Credits: 

Image Souce: Flickr.com: Terinea IT Support. www.terrine.co.uk

Measuring Up: Quantifying Designers Performance

One question that’s plagued many a creative director is this: How you measure a creatives performance? You can measure an account person by how much business and revenue they generate. How about designers?

Designers in the commercial design industry are tasked with creating work that works. Work that pleases the client, delights the consumer and drives sales of goods or services. Sometime that includes the work pleasing the creative director, sometimes not. It’s commercial work, not fine art. Fine art has the luxury of being subjective and can be purely conceptual. Commercial work has to sell stuff.

The clearest metric to evaluate design work and by extension, the worker, is "adoption rate". Did the client choose the work? Did it make it to shelf, or on-air? Could the client quantify a sales bump? Or were all your designs left in the "outs" bin.

A slightly more subjective metric is whether the design delivered on the strategy of the project. Does the designer consistently hit the target - doing work that actually makes it to a client presentation (that is, past the CD and the account director whether the client chooses it or not).

The final criteria is the WOW factor. Is it gorgeous? Did it make the CD's eyes tear up just a little bit? Pure aesthetics are important, too, and a seasoned creative leader knows beautiful work when they see it. We were trained to recognize it and we have years of experience judging it. It also has a tendency to win awards if you’re lucky on top of being good.

I generally take notes as the year passes and capture who did what work in my designers goals folders, so at annual review time there are clear examples to reference in your conversations. 

Other factors also influence a designers success in the studio. Do they show up to work on time? Is the work ready at critique time? Is it visually presented well? How well do they speak strategically to the work? What do they bring to the table in brainstorming sessions? What do they contribute when it comes to studio-wide inspiration? What creative energy two they bring to the workplace? How are their client relationships? All important factors.

But the crucial metric of a designers success is certainly “adoption”. Do they do strategic design work that makes it through the gauntlet? Is that work of high aesthetic quality? If the answers there are yes, you’ve got a winner on your hands and many other sins can be forgiven.

Credits: Image Source: Flickr.com: University of Salford Press, Techhub Manchester Murals Project

Now NOT To Hire A Diva Graphic Designer

If you’re in the creative management field you have certainly run into this. You have that one designer on your team who just can’t seem to let go of that one idea. It’s a good idea and the design is strong, but it needs to be massaged, edited, tweaked, maybe more on strategy. In the critique, when suggestions start to be made about the work, you can almost see the hairs raising on the back of their neck. 

You can almost hear the words rattling around in their heads: It’s their baby! They’ve slaved over it! Kerned, tracked the type oh-so-lovingly, created just the perfect illustration. How could it possibly need to be changed? Its perfect for cryin’ out loud! Can’t you see that you overbearing CD? 

These are the designers that don’t make anyones life easier. The stubborn ones, the argumentative ones, the ones that go away to work on revisions and come back a day later with virtually nothing changed to the artwork. What? Can’t you see I nudged it up? It’s totally different. But, you know it’s not totally different. They just aren’t budging.

Of course, I respect a designers convictions. If a designer believes strongly in something and can argue it’s merits in aesthetics and design strategy I can be convinced. I’ll come on board. But, sometimes a designer just turns out to be a diva. (or divo…)

And I have the one interview question that will keep you from hiring one. 

I’ve probably hired around 400 designers and freelancers in my career. No kidding. I ALWAYS an sure to ask this question. Here it is

“Do you have a creative outlet outside of work?”

You see, if a designer ONLY has the design work that they do during the day, the design work that can have a thumbprint put on it by account managers, strategists, creative directors, by the clients child who happens to be following Daddy around at the office that day - then you are in trouble. 

A designer has to have somewhere where they can create something that no one can touch. Where the work is sacred and the total intent is theirs and theirs alone. It can be a song, it can be an illustration, it can be a cupcake, a knitted sock monkey, it just has to be theirs and untouchable.

I would say about 90% of the time the person I am interviewing does have an alternative outlet for their creative juices than what goes on in the design studio. It’s actually very common. Creative people are creative everywhere. At home in the kitchen, on vacation, in a wood shop or even sitting in front of TV noodling on a guitar or sketching. 

But when you get that candidate that says, “I just love graphic design, I live and breathe what I do in the design studio at work.”, then you are in trouble.

If a designer doesn’t have another creative outlet you’re in trouble. Then, what they do at work for clients will take on an immense weight of importance to them. It will be come everything. Don’t get me wrong, I want designers to care about what they are doing in the studio, I want them to really think about it, let their passions go wild. What I don’t want them to do is get the idea that it is sacrosanct. Because in the world of commercial graphic design - and let’s not be all hoity-toity about it - it IS commercial art, there is no place for “the precious”.

I’ve ignored a wrong answer from a candidate to this very important question. When I’ve really dug a portfolio, and the resume looks totally tight and the designer is wearing impossibly cool shoes. Thinking they had to be a good hire. 

And the answer to this one question has always been able to tell the future.

Image source: Image by Libby Levi for opensource.com

In The Future: All Design Will Be Free

Hear me out on this one. In the future, All Design Will Be Free.

That's right. Free. Anything that can be digitally created: graphic design, music, video, animation, photography, illustration, etc. will be created specifically for you, for free. 

Just look at what's happening around us in the branding and design landscape. In the past big branding consultancies could charge top dollar for corporate identities, branding, packaging, collateral, visual media, film, videos, animation. It wasn't uncommon for a Landor, a Pentagram, a Vignelli Associates, to charge $1MM or more from a large corporate ID project. Oodles of research, focus groups, rounds and rounds of explorations and revisions, massive style guides. Don't get me started on advertising. Those dollar figures are sick. 

Not to say that those projects don't still happen today, they do. But there is a shift happening.

Those budgets are half what they used to be. Companies are bringing in smaller and smaller agency players that are doing things on the cheap and they are getting cheaper all the time. But corporate ID has taken the smallest hit, all things considered. Where the real bite has come is in the smaller projects. The $50K- $250K projects. "Smaller" being a relative term here.

A couple years ago, I worked on developing a new natural food brand for the biggest grocery store chain in the US. At the last minute, the EVP of private label brands decided to "crowdsource" the brand identity logo. The creative brief was drafted, posted on one of the largest crowdsourcing websites and a prize of $2500 was offered to the winner. We, the agency, were shocked and dismayed, of course. We just watched $100K of our project revenue evaporate. Poof.

Now the design phase of this particular crowdsourcing project saga is a topic for another post. Its long, head-spinning and funny if it wasn't so terrifying. Suffice to say that the client burned 6 weeks of design development time and we were handed a very subpar identity to deal with at the end if it all.

From the point of view of the client, if they could get an identity they liked for $2500 when it was originally going to cost them $100K from the agency, who wouldn't do it? 

That's a 97.5% cost reduction, by the way.

We all know crowdsourcing design sites like DesignCrowd, Crowdspring, 99Designs are devaluing design and the design industry as a whole. For example, 99Designs has had 6.5 million logos submitted in the past three years. The company has paid out $20MM - or an average of $3 per design. A sobering figure.

The UK designer Andrew Kelsall posted on his blog a response to a client who decided, after engaging him for a quote, to crowdsource their design project:

"This...is putting hard-working designers out of business. 99% of the designers (on the site)...effectively work for free."

Sadly, this monster was created by the designers themselves. By participating in crowdsourcing, they have driven down prices of design, are promoting pitch-work, and are lowering their own chances of making a living.

But now specifically commissioned creative work is being done for pennies, too.

On Fiverr.com there are literally hundreds of designers who are willing to create work for just five dollars. The site has coders, website builders, videographers, photographers, animators, voice-over artists, musicians, all who offer services for five bucks. In many cases what you get for five bucks is pretty amazing. Granted, designers on the site up-sell for elevated levels of deliverables services, but the precedent is set. And the competition is fierce. 

Every day creatives on Fiverr.com are offering more and more for your five bucks.

Hoping to be among the chosen for a project, design hopefuls are doing work for free. Creatives in the developing world economies in particular are making out-sourcing digital creative work incredibly easy and competitive.

In the natural food brand project for the grocery chain I mentioned above, the client received 800 logo submissions to choose from. There were over 250 designers who did work, and some of it very good work, for only the slightest of hope of being chosen. The client saw all the work, evaluated all the work and asked for revisions on a great deal of the work. Then they paid one person for one design. 

The rest, 799 designs, they got for free.

Today anything that can be digitally created and transferred: music, design, photography, coding, etc. is being given away for free by talented people who just want their work to be appreciated by someone, somewhere. On Flickr.com, there are currently 58 million photographs available to use under an Attribution Only Creative Commons License. Which means you can use the photos for free commercially, as long as it is attributed to the photographer.

Increasingly, if you want free design work, fonts, video, animations you can get them. Easily. You can use them with the creators blessing. The quality of the work is going up everyday. And it's only going to get better.

And eventually, it will all be free.

Credits:
Image source: "Free Design" http://www.doobybrain.com

In Praise of the Cube: Creatives Need Privacy

I'm a bit of an introvert. Maybe more than a bit. I find group activities somewhat draining. I find solitude rejuvenating and I do my best creative work when I'm alone. 

Given that, it's kind of funny that I've spent my career leading large groups of designers and artists in creative settings, Fortune 500 companies, global brand consultancies and learning institutions. 

I began weaving the web of my career as a painter, a fine artist. A solitary pursuit for the most part. When I needed to find a path to make a better living I got my MFA so I could teach. I loved teaching because I love learning. I love sharing how to travel a path of learning with others. 

Later, I found that being a creative director was a lot like teaching except you made more money. Also, your work and the work of your teams are enjoyed by people all over the world. No artist wants to work in a total vacuum.

But with this transition came a need to be more outgoing. To be more often involved in group pursuits than individual ones. I built up that muscle. And it took a lot of trips to the gym.

Susan Cain, in her book "Quiet: The Power of Introverts in a World That Can't Stop Talking" writes about how in the 20th century as our society moved from agrarian communities in the country to the cities, we changed. We went from working with a small group of people who we knew well to living and working in large groups of people we didn't know. Being "outgoing" became the goal. Our hero's became the great salesman of the world. Our bible, Dale Carnegie's "How to win friends and influence people". 

This evolution brought with it physical changes to where and how we are working. In the corporate world and particularly design studios, the move to create open floor plan work spaces has reached a critical mass. In a knee-jerk reaction to breaking down the walls of de-personalization that the Dilbert-esque office cubicle seas wrought, we have lost something that was worth protecting. Solitude. Designers need solitude. They need quiet and privacy to ruminate and ideate and play with ideas. Without distraction.

The casualties of this evolution are everywhere. You can see them in any design studio in the world hiding under their noise-cancelling headphones. They aren't just getting into their own jams. They are trying to escape the constant noise and distraction the crumbling of the cubicle walls has brought down on them. 

One designer on Whirlpool articulates what I have heard over and over in my years as a creative leader: 

"I work in an open-plan office, and hate talking to the people near me. I just don't want to annoy everyone else. So instead, I hole up at my desk, earphones on all day. I email people who sit five feet from me. Whoever designed my office has absolutely failed: Instead of making people more collaborative, it separated them. This trend needs to stop."

The results of this trend are also quantifiable it turns out. Finland's Institute of Occupational Health reports a decline of 5-10% of the performance of cognitive tasks like reading, writing and other creative work when in an open office setting. Management might be too drunk on the work-pod Kool-Aide and the cost savings in office furniture. Or the shoulder-surfing tabs-keeping on "what the hell are these people doing?". 

Or that open office plans just look cool. And I have to say they do look cool. Because if we look cool and modern, we are cool and modern, right? I mean, can you imagine a design firm with cubes? I didn't think so. This, it turns out, is a big part of the problem.

The facts increasingly point to this: Companies see open, collaborative spaces as an extension of their brand image. They are more interested in how it looks, than how well it actually works. Solitude is just out of fashion. Simple as that. And for creatives and designers that's a problem. 

It should be a problem for their companies, too.

All this is outweighing optimal creative productivity. And since when has business turned it's back on improved productivity? Especially when in today's business world, creativity and innovation are what separates the winners from the also-rans.

The fact is people whose work is distracted make 50% more mistakes and take twice as long to finish. Maybe that has something to do with the complaint that we are working longer hours than ever.

Plus, most designers don't like it. You've heard "A happy wife is a happy life"? Well it goes triple for designers.

The real question is: What does work? The answer is choice. Balance. Companies and agencies need to give designers access to both kinds of work spaces. If I were to place a bet, I would bet that the spaces that afford designers quiet, uninterrupted concentration and a reasonable amount of visual privacy will be the ones being fought over. Tooth and nail, if I know my designers. 

The pendulum of open floor plan offices needs to swing back to center.

In re-watching Susan Cain's amazing TED talk about the power of introversion, one statement jumped out at me. "There are no revelations without solitude."  

What design revelations and innovations have we already missed by removing our creatives space to think?

photo credit: Ben Mautner, @flickr

Sensory Packaging: Beyond the Box

I was interviewed by Packaging World Magazine about "sensory packaging" last year. I think that the topic is more important that ever. Everywhere you turn brands are engaging a broader range of senses to elevate the customer experience, improve engagement, driving trial and purchase. 

I had a conversation with Microsoft a few months ago about how they might be able to "consider" with much more intent and attention the experience people have when they open one of their products. They have come a long way from the days of "What if Microsoft designed the iPod packaging"  but they still have a way to go. Their Surface box is really quite sexy with a really nice use of clean lacquer on black matte.

I discussed Apple with them, of course, how could you not? That's who they are watching and chasing of course. Who isn't? Apart from the admirable visual cleanliness of the pack design, the tactile experience, the tightness of the box seams, the nesting of the product, the feeling in your fingers when the box top pulls off is all completely "considered". Even the smell of the interior. 

Have you ever smelled the interior of a new computer box? You probably wouldn't even mentally register it, but I would bet that you have a olfactory memory of it.  There is even a company that makes a USB device that exudes smells. Imagine if they offered a "new Mac smell". I'd buy one. Just like the car "scent pine trees" that smelled like "new car". 

Olfactory memories are the most indelible that humans have. Every time I smell Chanel #5 I think of my grandmother. Every time. She passed 20 years ago. Every time I smell root beer I think of Deerhorn Camp in Wisconsin (long story…)

Here's my extended interview "The Sentient Side of Packaging" from Packaging World Magazine Anne Marie Mohan was a fantastic interviewer and I thank her for making sense of my ramblings where I discussed everything from scratch and sniff to velvet flocking.

You can download a pdf of the interview here.

A Great Career Looks More Like A Web Than A Ladder

In my professional life, I'd like to say I'm mostly self-taught. But to be truthful, I didn't teach myself. Hardly anyone does, unless they are a contractor or self-employed. It was on-the-job training; that is, experiencing new challenges and learning on the fly and with the help and guidance of some incredible managers. 

I was schooled in the fine arts and got my MFA in Painting. But then, after years of struggling to find teaching work at the college level and working day jobs, I started my own apparel company. I eventually closed my business and went to work for one of my competitors as a T-Shirt designer. This was at the dawn of the computer era, so I taught myself everything I could on my own time at home, and then put it to work at the office, doing apparel, catalogs, marketing collateral, etc. 

Eventually I moved up and started managing people and quickly discovered that managing designers was a lot like teaching, except you made a lot more money and weren't out of work every 9 months. And I was good at it. I loved inspiring, developing and leading creative people. And I found I loved business.

I eventually landed at a Fortune 100 apparel company and after 11 years worked my way up from director to VP overseeing 4 departments and 65 people. I had an incredible mentor there who gave me a new challenge or a new department or a promotion just when I needed it. I learned the "business" of business: financial reporting, budgets, HR goal setting, assortment planning, building presentation decks, doing cost/benefit analysis. All the things that they don't tell you you'll have to do when you think you want to be a CD. I am good at it and unlike many creative types, I also like it.

After I left the apparel/retail industry I moved over to the agency-side as an Executive Creative Director, doing strategic design, branding and consumer packaged goods. I had an incredible mentor there as well. I was learning on the job. I could lead designers, but knew little about strategic design or design thinking when I started. I learned to pitch and win new business, manage client relationships, build processes. All on the job.

My career isn't typical. As Paul Pressler used to say at the Gap, "A great career looks more like a web than a ladder." You have to teach yourself whatever you can, when you can. Be open to learning from managers, mentors, co-workers and even vendors. Take new challenges on. Embark on a new career trajectory even though you may only have a vague idea of where it's going or what you're doing. You'll learn more. Learning is one of the great joys in life. It should never end.