An Education

I found this absolutely perfect chart on this great blog post about education:



The post is a criticism of the way we teach math/science/engineering, but, really, I think the criticism applies to our general approach to teaching. Having worked as an educator before, I have been incredibly dismayed at how critical thinking and imagination have taken a back seat to memorization, "problem-solving by recipe," and cramming. My students were completely at a loss when there wasn't a predetermined "right answer."Scary for our future and frustrating for generating genuine enthusiasm for learning.

I love how this blogger calls on computer scientist, Alan Kay, and his advocacy for a liberal arts education because it teaches metaphors and ways of thinking which Kay argues become useful later in engineering. In fact, he/she says that according to research done by Jacques Hadamard, mathematicians use the symbols, equations, and formulas they learn merely as tools to communicate the real work that they do--conceptualizing, problem solving, intuiting.

Now, it may be that this chart and thinking resonate with me because I such a geeky dreamer who loves to sit around and muse about hefty symbolism and meaning constructs...but it also seems to me rather ironic that both marketing strategists and mathematicians are looking for the exact same qualities in their future stars. Perhaps this begins to prove that this is the best groundwork for educating our future leaders regardless of discipline (I hope).

Two last quotes from this interesting blog:

From Jason Fried:
"Hire curious people. Even if they don't have the exact skill set you want, curious, passionate people can learn anything."

And from Jacques Hadamard:
" Logic merely sanctions the conquests of the intuition."

Gamepocalypse: Best Thing Ever or Should I Jump Off a Cliff Now?

Fair friends, lately I have been missing the hallowed halls of academia. It's true. Corporate America, even with the MTV veneer of advertising, can be fun, but it could use a little more ivy, wool cardigans, and musty books.

Thankfully, my wonderful friend and teacher, Cam, invited me to this great seminar/lecture, Gamepocalypse (please see slide show below). It's part of a lecture series from the Long Now Foundation, which apparently is dedicated to long-sighted solutions and thinking. How effing awesome is that? It's like my shrieking battle cry to 21st Century decision-makers.

Visions of the gamepocalypse

View more presentations from Jesse Schell.

So the slide show doesn't do the lecture justice. Jesse Schell is an incredibly funny, insightful, and smart speaker. Even when talking off the cuff, I was really impressed with how quick he was and how much he had clearly already thought through the issues. They should have a video up soon, so you can catch all of the amazing goodness for yourself.

He made some pretty spectacular predictions about the future of gaming permeating every aspect of our lives (particularly thanks to life-sucking marketers like myself). It makes sense in a lot of ways, as games become more interactive, it's less about Pac Man and more about user experience (UX) and augmented reality. I was most excited about the possibilities he laid out for really good voice recognition. It will really change everything.

Most of all though, I appreciated his insights into human nature and why/how we love games/interactivity:

--People love games because they don't HAVE TO play them. The minute you make a game mandatory, it loses its appeal.

--External incentives kill a game. People lose engagement quickly. Crafting an experience that is intrinsically fulfilling and engaging creates longer, deeper engagement and passion. *Beautiful point. I REALLY want to see some hard data to back this up!

--Digital is ruining the natural human/societal capacity to forget, which tied in beautifully to a recent Times article I read that does a great job of showing how disruptive this is to natural rhythms.

--People love games because they offer a sense of progress, the possibility of success, clear feedback, and engage curiosity (see slide 20).

Jesse also left me with another slew of books to add to my list of must read books, including: The Rational Optimist by Matt Ridley, Good to Great by Jim Collins, Punished by Rewards by Alfie Kahn, The Chronicles of Narnia (re-read), and Ender's Game by Orson Scott Card (I know! I know! It's ridiculous I haven't already read it, but Scott Card always struck me as one of those weird Mormon writers, so I stayed away).

I am so glad I went, and I think I would like to find more lecture series to attend in the city. It's a great way to learn (like a podcast but without the earbuds!) and its inspiring. Thanks, Cam, for a great experience. Thanks, Gareth, for letting me steal the links to the presentation from your blog.

Profundity for the People

A couple of blogposts ago I talked about bringing profound thinking to marketing efforts.



Well, I just came across this interesting MediaPost article on people of "my generation":
Conclusion? Yes. Organized religion is taking a diminished role in the lives of Americans, but obviously that desire for quiet, reflective thinking (as takes place in prayer) remains.

I would say most of us know people many people who eschew the label of "religious," but like to still think of themselves as "spiritual."

The whole article is an an interesting read on the attitudes and demographics of "Millenials" (I still don't know how I feel about that moniker), even if you're not into marketing or sociology.

Melancholia in Post-Modern Marketing

I recently read this New York Times article (fave pub) looking at depression through the lens of evolutionary psychology, speculating that depression is the result of "ruminating" aka pondering/introspecting/analyzing...basically thinking

I think, therefore I am...sad.

Thinking people are more likely to be depressed. Great. Tell me something I don't see in my own life.

The article goes on and on in an exhausting academic debate about the evolutionary benefits of having so many depressed people in our species.

What stuck out to me was this argument that there is an evolutionary/biological foundation for rumination/introspection/deep thinking. This is something people want and need in their lives.

There are some smarties/creative types out there that think they have the corner market on higher thinking, but if late night Boy Scout camping conversations taught me anything it's that people from every walk of life in our society share times of deep reflection and share the same concerns and conclusions.

Because I am in this cursed field of advertising, I am going to draw back conclusions to branding and marketing which is--why aren't we we creating things that speak to this obviously deep desire of people?

We make ads that speak to the desire to make love, to be loved, to be victorious, we encourage companies to be social to address people's need for community, and yet where is the brand/campaign/website that encourages users to engage in deliberative reflection?

There is a reason that Eat, Pray, Love was on the bestseller's list for over two years, and why the Oprah Book Club was such a big hit, in general. People want to think about these things. They feel better for having had these thoughts, for having a scaffold on which to hang these yearn-filled threads, for knowing there are others with the same wonderings and private struggles of internal reconciliation without feeling like a complete lunatic.

This all reminds me of the once beautiful meaning of the word 'melancholia,' which did not mean sadness, but meant deep, quiet, extended thinking about a question or problem.

Durer captured it best in his work entitled, Melancholia:


In the meantime, I am going to be on the look out, for campaigns/brands that offer this, and for opportunities in which such could exist.

The Evolution of the Web

Today at work, we were having a conversation defining the nature of web 2.0 and 3.0. For my gentle readers who need a little web primer:
web 1.0--websites throwing info (content) at users aka read-only
web 2.0--Users can create, share, and respond to content
web 3.0--web understands content and context to customize experiences

As I was thinking about our little conversation and, of course, being the good BYU alum that I am, I related our conversation to a little religious allegory, if you will. Bear with me in my imperfect metaphor.

Web 1.0 is like the Middle Ages, when we had to rely on authority figures (the Church) to let us know what we thought about God, because, well, none of us could or write, so they were the ones with the know-how and the power to make it (religious thinking) happen.


Web 2.0 is the online equivalent of the Gutenberg printing press. Now we can all read and write! We can decide for ourselves, share ideas, and tell each other about God! Huzzah!


Web 3.0 is like our post-modern age! I am making my own god, baby! And it looks like it's graven in gold.
(helping people find their personal god since 1950)

Blog-alicious!

Some of you, my gentle readers, may know that when I find consumed with the ennui, I often like to turn to the Craigslist Missed Connections board to idle away sometime, find great amusement, and even connect with the poignant pathos of the lonely and urban.

Well, now I have found a blog that takes one of my favorite activities of leisure and transforms it into a work of sublime New-Yorker-cartoon-style beauty. Behold:
missedconnectionsny.blogspot.com



This genius woman, Sophie Blackall, takes it upon herself to create these beautiful illustrative works, bringing to life the best that missed connections has to offer! I love it! Is there some board I could nominate this blog to?

This may be my fave:

Men Tweet Loudest . . .

. . . territorial claim? Attracting female-feathered-friends?



In a Harvard Business School study this month, HBS found that men seem to be much more vigorous users of Twitter than women, going against the "long-standing" social media tradition of women as the power players.

This actually makes perfect sense to me, and is something I assumed already, because of three big reasons:

1) Nature of content

Twitter is not about really elaborate connections that women favor on Facebook/MySpace where you can see dynamic pages of photo and story content, they're terse updates and generally connections to news.

According to HBS "the top 10% of prolific Twitter users accounted for over 90% of tweets . . . on a typical online social network, the top 10% of users account for 30% of all production".

Why? Because typical social networking is about sharing, having a conversation, which is appealing to women. Twitter does not really foster a "conversation", it is very alpha-male driven; "I am an expert, listen to me."

Which leads me to . . .

2) Twitter is used more by industry windbags

This fits in part with the inherent difference between the two platforms. Business people aren't very interested in tagging people in photos, taking part in cute surveys, etc., but they are very used to the veritable ticker-tape flow of information present on Twitter. While one platform is seen as meaningful social connection, the other has very streamlined value as focused information-mining.

This actually reminds of an experience I recently had: I was at a Sunday brunch populated mostly by young Hollywood artists, writers, and socialites (?). The topic of social networking came up and this circle of mostly women expressed confusion at the real use/benefit of Twitter, meanwhile one of the other men and I kept trumpeting its wonderful use for business, marketing, information-gathering, and trend-following. This other gentleman was the owner of a prominent downtown LA restaurant. We eventually went off on our own to relish in each other's social media genius and merrily discuss business strategy in the developing downtown LA area.

So business people like Twitter, and as we know, in spite of increased gender equality, the world of business is still dominated by men, especially when we are thinking of the main Tweeters as being source of information/authority, so it makes sense that Twitter is dominated by men.

To further propel this idea that Twitter is for business people (aka men) is the median age of Twitter users, which according to Pew Internet is 31, and this other article which shows us an even more in-depth picture of Twitter use across age. So users are not kids posting about parties. They're grown-ups talking shop.

3) Everyone's experiences are just like mine!
I looked over the people that I follow on Twitter and realized they were almost all male.

All the Laaadies!

This goes out to all of my lady friends out there, in particular my dear friend, Noemie, who showed me that awful Quattro ad weeks ago:



Ultimately, what irks me about this is holding on to cultural traditions that don't serve us. Tip-toeing around anatomy for the sake of Puritanical comfort breeds attitudes that make women ashamed of their own bodies and lead some people to think that when not being used for sex, vaginas are icky.

This reminds of (of course!) that wonderful female driven show, Sex and the City. In one episode Charlotte is so uptight she has never actually looked at her own vag. Its not until her mid- 30's that she finally grabs a hand-held mirror and takes a peek. What does she learn? It actually looks really nice! Also reminds of an episode where Samantha gets scrutinized by a guy for being "between waxes". She grabs a pair of clippers and turns the tables on him. He learns: Hey! It looks bigger!

While I am not suggesting we put overtly sexual material out in the general public sphere. I am saying calling a penis a "wee-wee" or a vagina a "who-ha" creates internal conflict about body image and negatively affects sexual interactions in the future, which then negatively impacts families. Whether you're a conservative Mormon or gay marriage activist, don't we all want stronger families?

So let's be honest with ourselves and each other and maybe we can help erode inferiority complexes and unrealistic expectations. And maybe advertisers won't sell products like nervous middle-schoolers.

(Current TV's Target Women is one my favorite things out there.)

R.I.P. Shabby Chic

Salon.com article here



REST IN PERCALE, SHABBY CHIC. PROVENCALE PERCALE!

That's right, Shabby Chic has gone belly up. And it's true, I am mostly writing this because I couldn't resist that play on words, but I do think it is an interesting development in the bankruptcies that have come with this recession.

For those of you who don't know, Shabby Chic was not just a nation-wide movement, it was an actual brand, started by a woman named Rachel Ashwell.

Shabby chic style was great if you had ovaries and liked comfortable furniture in which to appreciate your superfluous post-graduate degrees. But while the end of Shabby Chic, Inc. is blamed mostly on ill-timed expansion, I have to wonder if it isn't reflective of a deeper cultural trend.

Sure many home furnishings companies are going through tough times, but Shabby Chic was all about comfortable, new furniture that looked and felt like it was really old. Stuff that maybe you got at a flea market or conned your French grandma out of in exchange for some Julio Iglesias CDs and a bottle of California cabarnet.



It is because of Shabby Chic that words like "tea-stained" and "patina" are part of our vernacular and why you can use "sour cream" as a color while maintaining a straight face. Well . . . maybe just I can.

Shabby Chic was all about purchased history. Much like distressed, "antiqued" jeans, funky graphic tees from Urban Outfitters, and The OC Season 1 Soundtrack--it made you seem cool, like you had a rich life with colorful, obscure interests, while investing minimal time and energy.




But there is something really messed up about buying that. While we have always tried to co-op cool, what does it matter if you buy an Empire-era inspired secretary desk if you don't understand which Empire that desk is referencing?

We are departing from an era of excess, where we didn't mind spending top dollar for shabby chic and a gleaming SUV in the driveway to allegedly lug those charming treasures (although home delivery is nice) and I have heard throughout the previous months that Americans are returning to comfort foods and more traditional fashions, that thrift, rather than plush indulgence, is becoming a badge of pride. I retain a tentative hope.

We do know distressed jeans are dying, Shabby Chic is dead, and I think (I hope) that from now on, if we want to get something commercially produced we will embrace it completely (like Lady Gaga) and that if we want something with history, we will drag our collective asses away from Hulu/TiVO and go out live substantive enough experiences to fill our homes with things that really mean something to us. You know. Make it an actual home.