The Best 15:37 of Your Day: Rob Forbes on Ways of Seeing

This TED talk delivered all the way back in 2006, is even more relevant today. Looking at the world and interpreting the patterns and designs around us becomes more difficult by the day.

Rob Forbes, the founder of Design Within Reach, and more recently PUBLIC, a design-based alternate transit business, takes us on a tour of how he views the world.

Mr. Forbes shares some great ideas in his TED talk. Here are a few more ideas to consider when working to spark your own creativity:
1. Walk the streets. Walking in places both familiar and new will bring new ideas and patterns to you. You will be able to experience them with all of your senses and consider how they function collectively.

2. Put down the phone. You can only experience the world when you are in it.

3. Pick up your phone, but as a camera. Archive your experiences. This can be accomplished by photos, notes, sketches or verbal notes. Whatever works for you. Organize them in different ways. Consider viewing your various collections by color, or subject. You might be surprised what ideas develop.

4. Small can be huge. The smallest vignette sometimes brings the biggest ideas. I like to call them the 'unexpected delight.' These can be a sidewalk pattern, a handwritten sign, most anything.

5. Be a consummate student. Ask questions. Read, read, read. Then read some more. Learn about the bridge you walk over daily. Find out why that sculpture you enjoy is there. Knowledge is truly power.

6. Don't view the world with a commercial mind. If you are seeking a specific product to develop or monetize, you won't get the full value of your experience. File away your specific challenges, but stay open to simply experiencing the world around you. Then overlay later how those ideas may be used to address your challenges.

7. Frequency equals success. The more often you can turn your mind to truly viewing the world, the more you will get out of it. Try an attempt it once a week on your walk to lunch. Then continue to increase the frequency.    
       
As we enter 2013, we should all take a fresh look at how we view the world. We are entering a time that Mr. Forbes saw forming years ago. An age that values fewer material goods, but ones that are quality and well-designed. An age of curation over our lives and our possessions. It is exciting, but will require that the innovators work hard to interpret our world and respond to it.

Enjoy. Then start really seeing your world.

Storytelling is Joke Telling: Why it Matters in Advertising

When you are in the industry that I am in, it is all about telling a story. That's not true actually, it should be about storytelling. What it becomes all too often is terrible regurgitations of creative briefs. This results in near plagiarized ideas of other successful advertising and campaigns and commercials designed to shock or simply grab attention. Now let's look at one of the most successful storytellers.


Andrew Stanton is a filmmaker at Pixar/Disney, and is responsible for some of the most iconic movies of the last 25 years. Finding Nemo, Toy Story and Wall-E, just to name a few. Simply put, the guy knows how to tell a damn compelling story. The advertising industry could learn a lot from him. Here are a few of my thoughts from his great TED Talk.  

• "Storytelling is joke telling." Using humor is indeed a great device in advertising, but it has to lead to a bigger pay off. Humor is not the reward, it is the device that leads the customer to the reward.  

• "We all want affirmations." We want shared experiences. being part of a larger community is a must for emotional connection.   

• "The greatest story commandment is: Make me care." To care about your brand they have to understand your brand. To understand your brand you need to relate it to who they are and what they stand for. Confirming some truth that reinforces who we are. Mr. Stanton uses a great quote, "There isn't anyone you couldn't learn to love once you've heard their story." -Mr. Rogers. This is it in a nutshell. 

• Humans are born problem solvers. The audience wants to "work for their meal." They just don't want to know it. Don't craft your story so simply were it is obvious. Leave a few gaps and let people fill them in. Wall-E is a very pure example of storytelling where you have to work. No dialogue will do that to a movie. However, with beautiful flow, design, sound and music, we are able to complete the story. In my estimation we complete the story better than if there had been dialogue.  

• Be true to yourself, your story and your brand. Without truthful storytelling all the rest is just window dressing.   

Now let Mr. Stanton weave a story for you...

The Best 12:21 of Your Day: The Happy Secret to Better Work

This TED talk delivered to us all the way from TEDxBloomington is on rethinking how we view work and happiness.

Shawn Achor is CEO of Good Think, Inc. a corporate consulting firm. A former Harvard instructor, he explores positive outcomes and human potential, especially what he has coined the "Happiness Advantage."

Fundamentally, Mr. Achor believes that instead of working productively to gain happiness, we should work to be happy in order to increase work productivity. He uses his study of "positive psychology" and the belief that we need to escape the cult of the average in order to maximize our happiness. This makes complete sense once you look at it that way, but it is seldom done in any industry.

Let us consider a key piece of research that Mr. Achor references. When gauging success in the workplace only 25% of success is based on IQ. A full 75% of job success is due to optimism, social support and viewing stress as a challenge instead of a threat. 

This is huge for several reasons. First, we need to consider hiring and how we evaluate people. Considering there personality and attitude more than their IQ or educational attainment. How will they respond under deadline? How will they work with their peers? What overall attitude will they convey?

25% of success is based on IQ

75% of success is based on optimism and support 

Second, we need to consider how we manage. As a small business owner and someone who has spent a career in high-stress, high reward industries, this positive outlook is seldom used. Take for instance the advertising agency environment. Most agencies motivate their staff through winning of accounts, deadlines and the work hard - play hard system. Thus, the motivation is based on the success or failure of clients, revenue and projects delivered. The current model of, "hard work = success = happiness" simply forces employees to reset their goalpost of success to meet the next client deadline or next new business win. You never feel happy because there is always another goal to meet. 

But what if we followed Mr. Achor's philosophy? How do we make people feel positive in the present?
What if we focus on instilling happiness as a basis and then letting that happiness and optimism carry the individual to success?
It is a great thought that all leaders should consider.

 

The Best 16:10 of Your Day: Unintended Consequences

Every one of us had made a decision that has had unintended consequences later in life. Now magnify that idea and consider inventions, ideas and ideals that impacted people on a global scale. That is what Edward Tenner, a historian challenges us with in this TED Talk.

In this age of hyper technology and innovation, we should stop and consider the possible unintended consequences of many of the tools that we use daily. There is much written about the near term consequences of cell phones, social media, the Internet, Google and more. But what about the changes that these innovations and devices will have on humanity in 50 years, 500 years or even 5000 years? Technology futurists seldom think in distant time frames.

Mr. Tenner does a great job of getting us out of this near-term history concept and start thinking much larger. Always a good thing for any of us who work on entrepreneurship and ideas.

Enjoy...

Edward Tenner: Unintended consequences

The Best 3:51 of Your Day: The Technology of Storytelling

Do you know Lothar Meggendorfer? You probably don't, but you most certainly have enjoyed his invention as a child and perhaps as an adult. This talented 19th century German illustrator is credited with inventing the pop-up book. The self proclaimed story telling artist and creator, Joe Sabia (on Facebook) gives us a brief and entertaining glimpse into the technology of storytelling. Using his own humorous style based in technology, he gives us a nice starting point for further conversation.  

Does technology harm our storytelling abilities? I would say yes, but it doesn't have to. 
Did we falter in creative storytelling when moving from oral tradition to written? How about to movable type, or radio, television, computers... These are all simply devices that are there for us to shape and use. A child can explore amazing worlds sitting in the pile of dirt with a stick, but having the majority of all human knowledge at their fingertips shouldn't be the limiter to that exploration. Shifting how we educate our children is what will preserve, and even grow our creative spirit and our storytelling abilities. 

Robert Sabuda "Wizard of Oz" 

It is crucial that we encourage freedom of exploration and allow kids to explore the full gamut of storytelling traditions. Give them the basic tools of language and grammar to fully tell their story and stop fighting so hard to confine their learning to standardized tests. We are already seeing that simple acquisition and retention of knowledge is not what sets us apart anymore. It is the ability to efficiently seek out knowledge, curate it, build off it, create new ideas from it and convey it to others. Funny enough, these are the same skills that most employers need to be looking for.

Once again, TED has given me fodder for exploring my own new ideas and storytelling. Thank you.   

Joe Sabia: The Technology of Storytelling

The Best 5:30 of Your Day: After Your Final Status Update

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Adam Ostrow, editor in chief of Mashable, gives us a great topic to consider as we celebrate Día de los Muertos (Day of the Dead). What happens to your online "life" after you are gone? Now this is certainly not the most enjoyable topic, but it is a very important one. Facebook claims more than 800 million active users. The latest statistics I could find via the World Fact Book estimate that 55.3 million people die annually. That is two people every second. Given that we are about to hit the seven billion population mark, many of the newly deceased are not social media users. However, a large number are active on social media, thus the number of deceased users grow exponentially. 


This gives us a lot to ponder. What is the role of online media? Does Facebook, Twitter, Blogs all exist just for the living? Could they become memorials to the deceased? A modern way for the departed to remain in our collective consciousness and be remembered? Those of us active in following social media and technology trends are quick to point out that all information you share on the Internet should be considered permanent and public. Does this apply after death? 


Watch Mr. Ostrow's video below and start to ask yourself if you have or will use social media to remember people lost in your circles. How will this impact the amount of information archived? How should online groups such as Facebook handle archiving? What opportunities are out there for creating a more robust remembrance in "the cloud" for those that want it?  

Now I wonder how many presenters on the TED site are no longer with us in body? 

Adam Ostrow: After your final status update

The Best 17:16 of Your Day: How Beauty Feels

Designer Richard Seymour paints an incredible picture of beauty and why it matters. Not a whiny appeal that we need to appreciate beauty that you hear from designers from time to time. No, he outlines for us how we subconsciously know beauty, appreciate beauty, respond emotionally to beauty and most importantly, know what is not beautiful.

From a branding and marketing perspective, this reinforces to me that as professionals we need to do a better job of selling quality design to clients. We need to work to convey to them that an immersive brand experience is valuable. That they need to invest in their brand, their packaging, their total experience. Not just because it will look beautiful, but because the consumer will respond to that beauty. They will act on it. Ultimately, if it is on message, they will buy it and regard the product more highly.

Richard Seymour's design company, SeymourPowell is a leader in product and packaging design. You should check them out, view their work and see how it makes you feel.

This is a TED talk that all designers should watch. More importantly, this is a talk that all agency owners, strategists and branding experts should watch. Enjoy...  

Richard Seymour: How beauty feels

Buy Less, Benefit More

Yasuhiro Yamashita designed small home

Alternately titled, Better Living Through Curated Belongings.

Graham Hill is a writer at Treehugger.com and a designer. He explains in his TED talk how and why we should simplify our lives through smaller spaces, fewer things and more thoughtful living. He covers the idea of editing your life. His talk is certainly worth a listen. In it he explains how the world benefits and how the individual benefits.

Leading a more sustainable life is laudable for all of us, but I am more interested in how producers of things benefit. How does the furniture company, the electronics company, the car company benefit? In more ways than you can imagine.

Engaging in a cultural shift toward possessing fewer belongings does not mean that our earnings and total spending on goods and services will change. What it does mean is that we will start to desire products that are longer lasting and of more quality. Couple that with the trend of localized consumption and you have a perfect storm for and explosion of micro and artisanal manufacturers of a huge array of products. I believe you will also see a growth of locally based Etsy.com style sites. But what does this shift mean for current products?

The strong retailers and manufacturers will start to adapt. Companies like Target will start to stock more refillable and reusable products. The days of the low quality bookcase that goes to the curb on trash day after a couple years will be replaced by high-quality solid wood bookcases made from reclaimed materials. You may also start to see retailers offering trade-in and trade-up programs. The consumer will benefit but so will the retailers. Fewer total transactions may occur, but each product transaction will be at a higher price point and invariably a higher profit margin.

Neighborhoods will benefit by having more infill homes, more density and more civic engagement. If you live in a smaller home that doesn't have 4,500 square-feet you get out to public spaces more. Restaurants will see continued increase in frequency of visitors. Architects will have to be much smarter, but will get to be much more creative. Smaller home construction will also allow more custom designs as the total construction cost will be lower.  

Smaller quality product manufacturers located in your city will mean more jobs, closer commutes, more use of mass transit and so on.

Getting on the leading edge of this trend could hold great potential for business owners and entrepreneurs. There is great potential for more small retailers, small neighborhood grocers, residential renewable energy providers  and even service providers to help consumers downsize their lives.

A lot to think about as this trend takes hold, but a lot of possible benefit for all of us.
   

The Best 5:51 of Your Day: Doodlers, Unite!

This one is short, simple, to the point and best of all PERFECT. Doodling needs to come out of the hidden margins and to the main page. As a doodler myself, I am happy to know that it actually reinforces the messages I hear at conferences and meetings. I use doodles as meeting references and often place pages of doodles in my client files. many people in the advertising and design world think that only graphic designers are visual learners. As a strategist and writer, I can assure you that visual learning is at the core of my daily life.  

Doodle while you listen/watch this brief TED talk by Sunni Brown. Sunni has a deep passion for the study of visual learning and is great at conveying the information. Find out more about her and the work she is doing at her website.

Enough copy, to the video and doodling. Enjoy... 

Sunni Brown: Doodlers, unite!

The Best 16:17 of Your Day: The Origins of Pleasure

This one is a bit esoteric, yet incredibly relevant to marketing, branding and communications professionals. In short Mr. Bloom hypothesizes that our knowledge of the origins of an object is critical to our emotional response to it. He uses art and forgery as his primary example, but this is critical in our lives with brands and products.

In short, if we perceive a brand as an original, a brand of quality. One we have had positive experiences with before, we will respond to it with pleasure and enjoy it more.

I will leave it at that, and let Mr. Bloom explain the psychology of it. If you are in the marketing and branding world however, listen to this talk with an eye toward how you reach consumers. Is your brand, your story, reinforcing originality and trust... pleasure?

It is critically important to realize that the experience and perceptions of a consumer will determine your brand's fate with them, even if your product is identical to one they love. Think about that next time you decide to skip brand planning and go for a crowd sourced logo. The next time you consider skipping a review of your retail experience, your staff training.

Once you lose originality and the consumer loses that pleasure in your brand, it is gone.


Paul Bloom: The Origins of Pleasure

 

The Best 4:27 of Your Day: How to Make a Splash in Social Media

This is a story about Mr. Splashy Pants. The whale that hijacked a social media and web campaign for Greenpeace... and launched a movement. It is a very entertaining talk by Alexis Ohanian of Reddit.com. His talk reminds us of some very important things to remember when you are marketing or promoting services on the web.

First, while deep pockets help, the Internet and social media is still one of the most level playing fields there is. A great idea, story, photo or simple message can gain traction and become a movement a meme or a t-shirt slogan.

Second, Be genuine, be yourself and have a sense of humor about it all. This is especially true for brands and companies. If you give your fans a bit of ownership and flexibility while also engaging with them you will come out ahead. You can't always anticipate how even the most well thought out campaign will unfold on the Internet, but if you monitor, engage and adapt while maintaining a sense of humor, you will come out ahead.

These are lessons that our friends at Kansas State University should have learned from their recent EcoKat PR disaster.

This is a fun one people. Enjoy Mr. Splashy...

Alexis Ohanian: How to make a splash in social media

The Best 17:52 of Your Day: On Being Wrong from TED

There is little better than ending the week with another incredible TED talk. This one by self described "Wrongologist" Kathryn Schulz. She makes a compelling case for not just admitting, but embracing our fallibility. I think that understanding why we refuse to admit when we are wrong not only impacts us as individuals, but also how we work and live.
It certainly has impacted our political process and, as I will comment on later, our entrepreneurs.

This one should generate some comments. Let me know what you think. I'll try not to tell you that you are wrong. 

Take a few minutes today, enjoy Friday, and embrace being wrong...

Kathryn Schulz: On Being Wrong

The Best 17:27 of Your Day: Tribes We Lead from TED

As you will soon learn, we believe that TED is one of the most amazing organizations around. For those of you unfamiliar, TED stands for Technology, Entertainment and Design. It has grown from an annual conference to become a global movement. We find time each day to seek out one of the thousands of great (and free) talks. Today we bring you a classic. Seth Godin gives us the best thoughts on shared ideas and how we lead in the internet age. Fun and inspiring thoughts on how we form tribes and why it should be incredibly important to all of us, especially those of us who market.

Enjoy...

Seth Godin on the tribes we lead