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.

Presentations for the Future! (For Now)

UGC (or user generated content) has been the fuel of the social media revolution. It started with simple blogs and comments and has morphed into our present landscape cluttered with social networks, fan videos, and microblogs. All of this activity online has shifted the digital consciousness from the software and hardware that lives in your computer tower to the collective consciousness of cloud storage and exchange.

What has allowed this social media revolution message to really take off is that people have been armed with increasingly easy-to-use tools to create compelling multimedia on their own PCs. One human being can literally be a production house unto themselves. This means that people can create videos, websites, photo albums, etc. worthy of others' attention. Our sophistication as media consumers has thus increased significantly. We demand slick graphics, an appealing layout, and engaging imagery.

This demand for visual sophistication doesn't just exist in the realm of online entertainment, but has been running simultaneously in the world of business. Replacing pages of dry reports is the behemoth PowerPoint and decks of dry bullet points...augmented with animated transitions and easy-to-use color schemes, charts, and image importing.



PowerPoint has encouraged people to...think more about visual presentation and has become de rigueur in business communication. In fact, there was recently an article in the New York Times on the rampant use of PowerPoint by our own U.S. military.



Recently, a friend of mine tipped me off to Prezi.com. It's a web-based software program (that wonderful cloud-computing we were talking about before) that lets you easily create very dynamic Flash presentations.

Below is my own first attempt at using the software:

Bio Prezi on Prezi

My own presentation is rather limited. I kind of cheated and uploaded a large pdf, but that has created pretty blurry text. You can create text, add images (but maybe not use an entire image as your presentation), embed video, zoom in, zoom out, rotate your view, determine whatever path you want the points to follow. It's pretty great. It allows lots of personal control and at the same time is pretty simple to use.

You can store your presentations in Prezi's cloud (much like the currently popular SlideShare, you can share your presentation via link, embed it, or download it to your hard drive for an offline experience.

As a potential business communications tool, I think it shows genuine promise. It offers greater visual control and flexibility than PowerPoint. It is a web-based application, which means its very friendly to netbook users (but not necessarily iPad/iPhone users since it is a Flash-based application).

What really excites me about Prezi is that, rather than fracture an idea into bulletpoints one slide at a time (creating weak arguments and oversimplification of complex issues), the Prezi platform requires that you structure the narrative of your argument before you start using the program, that you look at the over-arching thesis of your argument and how you want to travel from point to point to point. Because of its zooming capabilities, it also becomes easier to take a step back and look at the "big picture" of an argument or zoom in for more "granular detail" (text/image points that were not previously visible in the presentation).

Angelie Agarwal does a much better job of showing in a simple way, some of the potential of Prezi (particularly for our Armed Forces):

De-Spaghettization of a PPT slide on Prezi

I would encourage you to check out Prezi's brief demo video to get a better grasp of how you might be able to begin to use it in your own communications/UGC/thank you cards to friends:

Good Idea, Bad Idea

Mems the "Good Idea, Bad Idea" segments on Animaniacs of yesteryear?



Ah, yes. Those were the good ol' days. Well, that segment was exactly what came to mind when I got this friend request on FourSquare:



GOOD IDEA:
Get involved in FourSquare, as a business/brand. It's a great way to interact with passionate consumers, you can incentivize check-ins and broadcasting, you can offer geo-specific, game-like promotions. I love it when brands get involved on FourSquare.

BAD IDEA:
Friend request someone you don't know, who has never been a patron to your establishment.

A couple of weeks ago I was in Nashville on a business trip. I stayed at the very lovely Hermitage Hotel. Loved it. I never went anywhere near the Loew's Vanderbilt Hotel.

Having long forgotten, Nashville, Loew's friend requests me out of no where this week! On a social platform where I broadcast my every movement. Why on earth, complete-stranger-business, would I want to give you the same license to cyber stalk me that I would give me to my close circle of friends on FourSquare?

Your friend request left me feeling creeped out. And not in the good way.


GOOD IDEA:
Develop a best practices guide for your social media managers before diving into a territory you don't fully understand.

Tirade over. Friend request denied. I think I will go to my much-loved BiRite, now, for some stress-eating indulgence

Sony Make.Believe

It has already launched in Europe, I saw Sony Make.Believe signs in the Panama City airport last week, but, at last, this new campaign for Sony has finally reached the U.S. and I am proud/thrilled to see it here.

While I was not part of the concepting of make.believe, during my time at 180 LA, I was thoroughly indoctrinated in the campaign, even working on some projects that will branch out of the philosophy of make.believe.

I don't think people realize what a big deal it really is for Sony--a brand which straddles so many different fields: music, entertainment, electronics, gaming, and computers--to have a unifying message/ideology of being a brand of imagination and realization. Drawing on the early history of its dichotomous founders (as I believe many brands should look at their birth for a sense of identity), Sony is striving to position itself as a brand that is not only visionary and imaginative internally, but that allows people to realize their own visions through Sony products.

Having worked with some of the marketing and R&D people at Sony, I can see that this new philosophy has already inspired and excited some of the people at Sony and motivated them to change the way they approach product design. I hope this philosophy becomes truly infectious at Sony and I am eager to see what comes out of Sony (and 180) in the next few years.

I was little miffed to see that no planners were credited in this long list of credits in an article by Media Post's Agency Spy. Ah well. Planning is fun enough with accolades.

R-E-S- . . . P-S-S?**

Research. Who does it? Who cares?

Lately that topic has come up quite a bit in conversation as I have talked to various people in the industry (of advertising).

Sometimes it seems that clients want to use research as a crutch, to validate the proposed campaign, to make decisions for them on what path to take, to help them sleep at night resting comfortably that they will get great ROI (Return-On-Investment. Perhaps one of the most hateful terms to have gotten stuck in my head since entering this dizzy little industry).

I think, for this reason, many creatives and planners have developed something of a resentful relationship towards research. It becomes hampering towards great ideas, diluting creativity, and stymie-ing potential growth. Some planners and creatives I have talked to value infinitely more the power of brilliant intuition.

This intuition comes in particularly valuable when you are called upon to offer keen insights on the spot, without the chance to research a question and assess trends and history. I would, however, counter that great intuition is built upon good research.

Once, long ago, I was fervently dedicated to the idea of becoming a clinical psychologist. People already came to me for advice, and I thought I was pretty darned good at it. I shudder now to think at some of the bad advice I gave. But at the time I thought my intuition was so damned good. It took years of listening to people's problems, studying human behavior in an academic way, going through some of my own life experiences, and taking a step back, pondering, and looking for larger patterns.

Now, when people come to me for advice on relationships, I think I can reliably say my intuition is pretty good. I can quickly look at a situation/dynamic and assess the key issues. Often, I can even offer a really good solution. But this quick intuition has been fed by years of research and analysis.

Ultimately what is intuition, but what is latently within us. And you can only get out of something what you put into it.

Some planners reading this will be quick to observe this is why we often want planners with a wide breadth of experiences, because they can draw upon those experiences to feed their intuitive problem-solving. Life experiences, reading, and deep pondering are definitely forms of research.

But I think we should not be quick to negate other structured forms of qualitative and quantitative research as incredibly valuable to the creative process. Research results from these endeavors can significantly expand our thinking beyond our limited experiences. Sometimes it is just about the right question. We see surprising data that maybe did not fit with our preconceived thinking, but suddenly that puzzle piece makes sense in the whole scheme.

I think therein lies the key to good empirical research feeding the creative process of advertising: asking the right question. Asking the question that probably no one else has thought to ask. It is asking these kinds of questions that has led to some of our great breakthroughs in thinking: air-borne germ theory, a helio-centric planetary system, pizza-on-a-bagel means you can have pizza anytime!

In all seriousness, as a former academic, I value good research and the insights it can bring, but, as a creative person, I know that the best solutions often involve an element of risk, of trying out something that cannot be proven to be fail-safe. And that is bad news to the business suits who want security blanket solutions.

**SPSS . . . the statistics analytics tool. R-E-S-P-E-C-T . . . the Aretha Franklin song . . . never mind.

Tell Me Lies, Tell Me Sweet Little Lies

Did I get that 80's song stuck in your head? Great because that was the first thing that came to mind when I saw this:


It's part of an inventive new campaign from Tappening, an organization aimed at reducing bottled water consumption. It's a popular trend that has inspired the proliferation of the annoyingly over-priced Sigg water bottles and banning of bottled water use by some government offices.

In a very aggressive move, Tappening is launching a campaign of self-admitted "lies" about bottled water. Their rationale being that the bottled water industry touts many lies about the health and purity of its products, and so it is only fair to fight fire with fire.

They are even encouraging people to start their own lies about bottled water across various social media channels on their site, startalie.com.

I do have to give them props for this inventive strategy. It shows a keen understanding of human nature. This hearkens back to what I kept saying about the whole Prop 8 strategy: it is easier to push human behavior with the very base human emotion of fear rather than convincing and compelling with love. Pro-Prop 8: fear mongering of societal demise. Anti-Prop 8: love is for everyone. Any time you can inspire fear in groups of people you can get them to go along with what you say. Witness American military engagement in Iraq, post-911 which enjoyed wide public support because of fear.

Tappening has "tapped" into this by recognizing that you are going to receive limited support by getting all squishy and emotional about reducing plastic waste and saving the environment, but if you can get people to see the bottled water industry as nefarious, deceitful, and harmful . . . well, then now you are going to get people moving.

While I support the cause, I am still morally unsettled on the tactic.

Interestingly, this issue has recently come to the fore in my personal life. As a new denizen of Los Angeles, I am the beneficiary of the City of Los Angeles' wonderful water treatment facilities! . . . which makes water taste like swill. This was particularly noted when we were out at dinner with our good friend Adam who described the water here as "slimy". I just think it tastes like pool water (read: HEAVY chlorine). Shane also does not like the water in LA and suggested we get water delivered to our home. Our PUR water filter only reduces the funky taste, but does not eliminate it. I was immediately concerned about the carbon footprint of water delivery, but Tappening's own link to an LA water analysis did nothing to make me feel better about drinking local tap, highlighting 46 pollutants in my tap water!

Tappening has even taken aim at my beloved San Pellegrino! I enjoy Pellegrino as an alternative to soft drinks and beer, not as a regular form of hydration. You can take my Evian, but you can never take . . . my Pellegrino!



Seriously, though, I support carrying your own reusable water bottle (I carry one myself) and getting people to think more about where the waste from their casual consumption goes, so I wish Tappening luck in their campaign to slash bottled water at the knees and if you want to help--start getting creative with your fibbing: www.startalie.com.

WTF LDS Media Planning?

Perhaps I am a little biased as a former rank-and-file member, but, in general, I would say the Mormons have done a pretty good job with their marketing and pr since, oh, . . . the 1980's.

In fact, to this day, I think the whole "Family, isn't it about . . . time?" campaign is pretty freakin' genius.


(Although the version aired in the U.S. did not have British accents; I think this is dubbed.)

But I seriously have to question this most recent move towards "interactive" media:



My friends and I were settling in to watch some hilarious SNL parody courtesy of the delightful Amy Poehler, when, ACK! It's Jesus! Offering me a Book of Mormon!

What is this trying to say? The Good Lord likes to get his chuckles, too? By watching SNL? Ironic, since the Church-owned NBC affiliate in Salt Lake City refused to carry SNL.

Maybe the Church is trying to save me from SNL? "Stop! Before you think of pushing play, remember Jesus and return to Jesus!"??

Bemused and befuddled, I watched the rest of The Dakota Fanning Show skit (hilarious, if you haven't seen it.) and learned a valuable lesson: blindly-placed banner ads (or any kinds of ads) are bad. Very bad.

*Please let it be noted that the PC display you see represented in the photo in no way reflects my own computer usage proclivities. The session of SNL viewing was done on a friend's PC and not on my own very lovely MacBook.

Life Update (Vlog)

V-Log, Vlog . . . I prefer vlog.

Little life update, sparing you lots of reading.

Dial House

Well, just as I have found a new amazing mentor to sink my teeth into (Cameron Maddux, Director of Account Planning at the Academy), he has found greener pastures at an amazing creative think-tank called Dial House in the SOMA of SF. A kind of rock-n-roll, buck-the-system consortium of deep thinkers that work on figuring out ways to define, strategize, communicate, and otherwise better existing brands, it is a great fit for Cameron. Sigh.

So being the awesome educator that he is, Cameron hosted a little after-hours soiree last Friday night at Dial House to kind of talk to Academy of Art planning people about where we can go from here and just to kind of say, "I am still here for you guys." Like I said, great educator; total sweetheart.

It was at Dial House that I met the much buzzed about Charlie Kouns (former Director of Planning at the Academy (AAU)). I was delighted to find Charlie to be a warm, imaginative Southerner with a love of stories and young people. I am looking forward to get to know him better.

In fact, Charlie and I got to talking about this project he is working on called Imagine Learning, designed to make education relevant to kids and what they need in today's world. I am so excited about it. This will be where my volunteer efforts will now be directed (ha! You didn't think I forgot about my vow of reformation, did you?). For those of you who don't know I have a pretty extensive background in child psych. and education.

I was also pleased to meet other young planners at Dial House. The conversations were interesting and humorous, and it was obvious that most of the people there had a good breadth of experiences and thinking. I may have found home. Hurray!