Please come have a look at my post today on the Fast Company Design Blog.
I take a look at Bruce Nussbaum’s argument that the Design Thinking revolution is dead.
Category Archives: Uncategorized
Is music getting crispier?
Flying home from Indianapolis yesterday, I was listening to music on my iphone. I forget which track. But I remember the genre: funk.
And all of a sudden, I heard myself wonder “Is music getting crispier?”
This is one of those very uncrisp problems, fraught with problems of definition and analysis. But it isn’t, I don’t think, unthinkable.
We could ask, at a minimum, do songs, and parts within songs, start more precisely and end more precisely? And are the pieces in between better defined.? Ok, so the definitional problems are formidable.
Even if the answer is “yes,” this may be prove a trivial finding. After all, digital technology makes precision easier. And this technology may encourage precision in other ways.This is another fantastically difficult calculation. But let’s say we remove the digital effect (somehow). Is there a crispiness still in place?
There is where we need a problem solving superhero to swoop in and my superhero of choice is Steve Crandall (pictured). Steve, what say you?
Is this a manageable problem? (Assuming of course lots of analytical risk taking.) Is it an interesting problem?
If we get a positive result here, the cultural implications are pretty fantastic. But let’s wait to hear from Steve.
Cool and the corporation
Please come have a look at my new post at the Harvard Business Review Blog.
It looks at the new VW ad, the one that shows a guy slapping hands with everyone he passes.
Look for a cameo appearance (in the post and the ad) from Shirley Ellis.
The post asks whether this ad defines a new approach to cool hunting for the corporation.
Medieval marketing
Please come have a look at my thoughts on the revolution sweeping through the world of marketing and the rise of secret messages in contemporary culture.
You can find them here at the Harvard Business Review blog. Click here.
Joy Walking
Please come see my latest post on Psychology Today.
It’s about the pleasures of being out and about on foot.
Thanks!
Music and Culture Now (Oh, and voices, too)
Please come have a look at my latest post at the Harvard Business Review Blog, The Conversation. Click here.
I am trying to think through the argument made by Simon Reynolds in his new book Retromania.
Here’s the graphic I used.
Also please come have a look at the post I put up yesterday on Psychology Today. It’s about an anthropological oddity, that we should buff and polish every aspect of the social self except the voice.
Considering how much time and money we spend on hair, skin, teeth, clothing, scent, fitness, we ought to be working our voices like topiary.
The Polish and other fashionable gestures
I am now blogging for Psychology Today. And my first post is up. You will find it by CLICKING HERE.
It’s about a new hand gesture that I see people doing. I call it “The Polish” because it looks like the gesturer is polishing the air. Please have a look and let me know what you think.
Thanks.
The food truck trend from 12,000 feet (and a tiny Cessna)
Please come have a look at my latest post at the Harvard Business Review. Click here.
And please leave a comment.
Thanks.
Minerva competition: coffee houses vs. food trucks, please explain
Coffee houses: the line in blue.
Food trucks: the line in red.
One is falling gently (according to this picture from Google Trends).
The other rising sharply.
The question: why?
This is an official Minerva competition.
Conditions:
One thousand words.
Point form ok.
Be imaginative, concise and interesting. Find your assumptions. Show off your knowledge and mastery of popular culture.
Winner gets a Minerva (as pictured) and a place in our Hall of Fame.
Deadline:
one month from today, i.e., September 19.
Submit to grant27[ATsign]gmail.com.
Judges for this contest:
Martin Weigel, head of planning, W+K, Amsterdam.
Linda Ong, President, Truth Consulting.
Piers Fawkes, Founder, Editor-in-Chief, PSFK.com.
Sam Ford, editor/author, Spreadable Media, Director of Digital Strategy, Peppercom.
Eric Nehrlich, Google, and author, The Unrepentant Generalist.
Cheryl Swanson, founder, managing director, toniq.
Leora Kornfeld, Research Associate, Harvard Business School
Backgrounder:
The Minervas were created to encourage people to ask cultural questions and craft cultural answers.
Winners so far:
Juri Saar (for the “Who’s a good doggie woggie?” contest)
Reiko Waisglass (for the “Who’s a good doggie woggie?” contest)
Brent Shelkey (for the “Who’s a good doggie woggie?” contest)
Daniel Saunders (for the “JJ Abrams vs. Joss Whedon” contest)
Tim Sullivan (for the “Karen Black vs. Betty White” contest)
Lauren LaCascia (for the “Showtime vs. USA Networks” contest)
Diandra Mintz (for the “Showtime vs. USA Networks” contest)
Mark Boles (for the “Antique Roadshow vs. Pawn stars” contest)
Indy Neogy (for the “Nordic Noir” contest)
Judges so far:
Debbie Millman
Pamela DeCesare
Dan Formosa
Tom Guarriello
Scott Lerman
Richard Shear
All of the above are from the SVA branding program.
Also:
Rick Boyko, Director and Professor, VCU Brandcenter
Schuyler Brown, Skylab
Bryan Castaneda, Attorney At Law
Ana Domb, C3, MIT
Mark Earls, author, Herd
Brad Grossman, Grossman and Partners
Christine W. Huang, PSFK, Huffington Post and Global Hue
Steve Postrel
Lincoln, design mysteries and the luxury car
Living in Connecticut, you begin to master the subtleties of the world of the high-end automobile.
I don’t own one of these magnificent machines. But of necessity I have become their student.
So today, on the way to lunch, I was impressed to see a luxury car I did not recognize. On closer scrutiny it proved to be a Lincoln. ”Wow,” I thought, “they finally got something right.”
Cars represent an interesting chapter of the designification of America (by which I mean the new sophistication in matters of design that has comes to virtually every category of consumer good). They went from terrible to something less disagreeable and in some cases to something close to splendid.
Ford let the way here with success stories across their line of automobiles. All but the Lincoln that is. These have remained really horrible. Tone deaf. As if somehow, someone at Ford has taken the Lincoln line captive, perhaps casting it into a deep sleep preventing any participation in the design thinking revolution.
So I was thrilled, finally, to see a Lincoln that didn’t suck.
I asked the owner, “Hey, when did this come out?”
He looked at me with surprise and said, “This car is 10 years old.”
Cambodia calling (putting innovation, design, and research to work)
Planners, ethnographers, designers!
Ever think about taking a year out?
Ever think about making yourself really, really useful?
Here’s your chance.
Mariko Christine, a friend of a friend, is setting up the first Human-Centered Design Innovation Lab in Cambodia. The Lab exists to develop products/technologies/solutions for the BoP (base of the pyramid / rural poor). Mariko works for IDE, an international NGO. The Lab has support from the Stanford DSchool, MIT DLab, IDEO, among many other leading organizations and funders.
Mariko is looking for a Fellow to help launch the lab. It’s a one-year appointment. The Fellow will lead the design of and guide the research process for innovation projects. The Fellow will need practical social science and research expertise, and the ability to use design thinking to create tangible solutions to real-world problems.
Here is the “call for application” for this amazing position:
FELLOWSHIP:
Social Science Fellow – Human-Centered Design Innovation Lab
Interested in leading ground-breaking research in the developing world? Passionate about designing extremely affordable innovations to tackle problems that are of life-and-death importance?
We are building the first Human-Centered Design Innovation Lab in Cambodia. And we need you to help us launch it. IDE is looking for a social science expert (anthropology, sociology, psychology, etc). We seek a design-thinker, with 2-5 years practical experience in design research methods including research planning, field work/interviews/observations, and synthesis into design opportunities. You will be the lead social science and research expert on a multi-disciplinary team, based in Phnom Penh for a 1-year Fellowship.
This is an opportunity to work on real-world problems alongside a close-knit, diverse, and top-calibre team. You’ll wear many hats, including that of a coach, to grow HCD in Cambodia. You’ll conduct ground-breaking research within the Cambodian culture in order to turn the findings into tangible interventions that improve the lives of those who need it most.
For full details, including how to apply, please download the position description at http://www.ideorg.org/GetInvolved/HCD_social_science_fellowship.pdf. [this pdf is still under development. Patience please.]
Causes of UK chaos
Here is the British Prime Minister on a cause of recent mayhem in Tottenham and elsewhere.
“At the heart of all the violence sits the issue of the street gangs. Territorial, hierarchical and incredibly violent, they are mostly composed of young boys, mainly from dysfunctional homes.
“They earn money through crime, particularly drugs and are bound together by an imposed loyalty to an authoritarian gang leader.
“They have blighted life on their estates with gang on gang murders and unprovoked attacks on innocent bystanders.
“In the last few days there is some evidence that they have been behind the coordination of the attacks on the Police and the looting that has followed.”
I expect Cameron is right about gangs as a cause of chaos. I also suspect that quite ordinary people got caught up in the event. And in this case the PM ought to be talking to Mark Earls.
It may be a two-stage kind of thing. Gangs ignite the occasion, supplying a license for unlicensed behavior and a tipping point. (See Bill Buford’s wonderful book Thugs on the first theme, and Malcolm Gladwell on the second.) That’s stage 1. Then comes stage 2, as “ordinary” people find that their moral tolerances and social understandings are suddenly “reset” by what the gangs have done.
I am using a machine metaphor (“reset”) rather than at a viral one (memes, contagion), etc. because the second group, ordinary people, are not in fact “infected.” Which is to say they are not taken by the virus.
They choose to follow the influence of the gang, to give themselves to the moment, and their willingness to follow and to give is itself shaped by social conditions, ideas, movements, in sum, the culture in place at the moment. And that means of course that the PM should be talking to Russell Davies.
Just so long as he knows we have trained professionals standing by.
References
Buford, Bill. 1991. Among the Thugs. London: Secker and Warburg.
Earls, Mark. 2009. Herd: How to Change Mass Behaviour by Harnessing Our True Nature. Wiley.
Gladwell, Malcolm. 2002. The Tipping Point. Back Bay Books.
Pepsi steals Santa
I was astounded recently to see a Pepsi ad that shows Santa on vacation somewhere in the Caribbean. There he is in a Hawaiian shirt, dancing in the sand, surrounded by noisy, happy sun-seekers. The tune is Montell Jordan’s new jack swing staple from 1995, “This is how we do it.”
Santa orders a Pepsi at the bar and the bartender says, “I thought you had a deal with . . . you know.” Santa replies, “I’m on vacation! Wanna have a little fun!”
In the history of cheeky ads, this is perhaps the cheekiest.
Leo Reynolds, pattern finder
Leo Reynolds is interested in letters, numbers, circles, and circles in squares (among other things). And when he finds one of these, he takes a photograph.
Reynolds’ Flickr photostream stands at 83,470 photos. (To take this many photos we would have to take a photo every hour of the day for 9 years.)
But it’s not volume. It’s subject matter. What Reynolds especially likes, apparently, is repetition that creates diverse sets of the same thing. This gives him sameness and difference in roughly equal proportion
Yes, it’s a little obsessive. But companionably so. Who wouldn’t like to find/make this much order in the world?
Who and what is an entrepreneur?
In this post, I offer an anthropological account of the entrepreneur, challenging the model proposed at TEDxOxford by Marc Ventresca of the Said business school. Please come have a look.