Grant McCracken, author of CHIEF CULTURE OFFICER: How to Create a Living, Breathing Corporation, wrote an op-ed that appears in today’s Toronto Star.

Upcoming: an interview with CBC’s Nora Young on Radio One program “Spark.” Update: listen here

Watch for more on McCracken and this book — he’ll be in Toronto on January 11, 12.  On Tuesday, Jan 12 McCracken in conversation with Indigo Chief Book Lover (or CCO) at the Manulife location.

How modern companies can harness what is hip – thestar.com.

I had the pleasure of seeing 2 inspiring speakers this week in New York City.  The first, Grant McCracken, an MIT researcher and professor whose exceptional work mixes anthropology with economics. Dr. McCracken has just released a new book,  Chief Culture Officer.  Check out his engaging blog for insights and information http://cultureby.com.  And last night I attended a reading and talk by Colum McCann. Mr. McCann recently won the National Book Award for his outstanding novel, Let The Great World Spin.  He also teaches at the Hunter College MFA Creative Writing Program.

As someone fascinated by the craft known as ‘public speaking’ (or, as I’m changing it to, ‘human speaking’), I am constantly intrigued by a speaker’s ability to connect with his/her audience.  McCracken and McCann put their own McStamp on their presentations, sending listeners home energized and inspired. 

I want to highlight two things from their talks. 

Prof. McCracken talked at length about the type of company people want to work for today:  “A place where we don’t have to leave our identity at the door.”   Having worked for some large corporations, I know exactly what this means — and I’m sure many of you do, too. 

Mr. McCann’s novel weaves together lives and voices in New York in 1974.  After his reading, an audience member asked what kind of history Mr. McCann hopes to leave with this book. An immense question to answer. How he handled it deserves mention. He spoke of visiting his dying grandfather in London when he was a child and his father taking him to the Hard Rock Cafe to have a hamburger afterwards. There were no hamburgers in Ireland in those days, McCann, said.  The waitress was Irish.  She touched my cheek just so, he said, demonstrating it with a soft hand. She said nothing…and then she came back with an ice cream sundae for me as a gift.  To this day, McCann explained, whenever I go to London and walk past the Hard Rock I think about that waitress. Where she might be today, what she might be doing. Her small act of kindness touched me. She probably forgot all about it a few days later…but it stayed with me forever.

The intellectual significance of experience and memory is a scientific subject far greater than I am capable of discussing.  But, from a human communications standpoint, what McCracken and McCann highlighted are two extremely important lessons that impact lives well beyond offices, corporations and hamburgers at the Hard Rock.   Every individual brings their personal histories with them wherever they go.  Offices are rich with personal experience.  A lot of identities walk through that door every morning.  Their motivation to ‘work hard’ depends a lot on how much the company wants to acknowledge them as humans who have opinions, thoughts, ideas, emotions, energy, etc.  Bring your identities inside and let’s make that work for the corporation, people.  That’s the kind of company “policy” they want to hear!

Colum McCann’s first hamburger and the kindness of a stranger he met is etched firmly in his brain.  It’s part of his identity. He shared that memory with a bunch of strangers last night and everyone was gripped by this personal story. I could see heads nodding throughout the room.  We ‘got it’. It’s very likely that many of us have a childhood memory similar to that (hopefully just as positive).  A memory of  childhood experience helped Colum McCann write a novel that won the National Book Award. His identity is all over the pages of that book. It inspired every word.

If corporations want their employees to represent the firm outside of the office — like a public speaking setting, for example — then acknowledge one of the things that the employee values the most inside and outside the office: their identity.  How many companies care about the positive childhood memories of their staff?  Should they?  I think so.  Identities and memories are not small things.  I completely agree with Dr. McCracken. Never check them at the door. A message to the corporation: Hire because you mean it. Not because you want a warm (barely) body at a cubicle fulfilling tasks.

Share your story, share your history. The power of identity and small things.

In the Harvard Business Review Grant McCracken writes about Why American Consumers Will Spend Lavishly Again.

The “new normal” — the idea that when income, credit and confidence return, Americans will not return to our free-spending ways — is an idea on the march, recruiting everyone from PIMCO CEO Mohamed El-Erian to Wal-Mart CEO Mike Duke. It’s spreading so fast it threatens to become the new orthodoxy.

I believe the argument is flawed. When Mike Duke says, “[P]eople are saving more, consuming less, and being more frugal and thoughtful in their purchases,” he is right in the short term, but wrong in the long term. When income, credit, and confidence return, consumers will party like its 1999.

To me this is one of the most important arguments going on in western society today. Will we return to our spending ways or will we back away from the consumer precipice and make more considered purchases?

What evidence is there that the ‘new normal’ is real and not an aberration from 60 years of consumerism?

I’d love to believe it but it seems thin to me.

• Grant McCracken – Chief Culture Officer (Jan 2010)
• David Kelly – What Technology Wants (Oct 2010)

So I’m back at my desk and finally dug out from my whirlwind week that included two great days at Planningness. I didn’t go to all of the sessions, but really enjoyed the ones I did go to, including:

• Jason Oke and Gareth Kay’s talk on Connections Planning
• Grant McCracken on Bringing Culture into Corporations
• Ken Eklund’s discussion of games
• Garry Tan of Posterous
• and the bonus session of Joe Lambert from the Center for Digital Story Telling

The decks and videos from the even are available on the Planningness website. Also, for some of the reactions and a recap via twitter, check out the twitter search feed here via #planningness.

Thanks to Mark Lewis and Claire Grinton for organizing everything and making everyone feel so welcome. Looking forward to next year!

Over the past year, there’s been no shortage of press surrounding Peter Arnell’s failings with the Tropicana and Gatorade brand redesigns at Pepsi.  I just read Fast Company’s Masters of Design feature on David Butler, head of design at Coke, and was impressed by the stark contrast he represents to Arnell’s approach. David Butler’s philosophy (not to mention personality) certainly sounds markedly different from Arnell’s “purveyor of pop culture” approach which found him on a “five-week world tour of trendy design houses” as a major source of inspiration for the Pepsi assignments:

“It’s great that when David speaks, he doesn’t speak in the language of design,” says Joe Tripodi, Coca-Cola’s global marketing chief. When he talks to folks on the manufacturing side, to the bottlers, to the retailers, Butler’s message, Tripodi says, “is very simple: Here’s what I’m going to do to help you sell more stuff.”

Contrast that with his counterpart, Pepsi’s design consultant, Peter Arnell, who titillated the blogosphere last spring with a 27-page memo he wrote called “Breathtaking,” defending his new logo design. He cited inspiration from da Vinci’s Mona Lisa to his Vitruvian Man, and described the “gravitational pull” of a can of Pepsi on a supermarket shelf. That was before he compared his genius at creating a 3-D Super Bowl ad to Thomas Edison’s invention of motion pictures. Many designers were mortified, fearing Arnell had discredited the whole tribe with his claptrap.

In many ways, Butler is the anti-Arnell, a first-class designer who shuns the latest trendspeak. “I read all the journals. I love design theory. I’m a junkie for that stuff. But that’s at home,” he says. “At work, I don’t use the phrase ‘design thinking.’ Here, it’s about creating more value. How do we sell more of something? How do we improve the experience to make more money and create a sustainable planet?”

David Butler is inspired by design theory and pop culture as much as the next designer, but his real drive comes from approaching big problems through systems thinking:

[Butler's experience at Studio Archteype] and a run-in with Peter Senge’s book The Fifth Discipline: The Art and Practice of the Learning Organization changed the way Butler thought about design. He saw how systems thinking could be applied in a more holistic way. In the past, he says, design had been focused on straightforward problems: Come up with a drinking vessel, say. But now it was being asked to solve multipronged problems: How do we get clean drinking water? “We’re moving from linear problems to wicked problems,” he says, and the old default solution — hire a rock-star designer — no longer works. “The model of a master of design creating that magical object that is going to change the business is an old way of thinking. I can’t use it to work on wicked problems. I need to have capability internally.”

Side note: This trajectory was pioneered by Esslinger at frog design and is a major focus of his new book, A Fine Line:

]]> http://outsideinbanking.com/2009/08/27/why-your-bank-needs-a-cco-now/ Thu, 27 Aug 2009 15:03:28 +0000 tombrzezina http://outsideinbanking.com/2009/08/27/why-your-bank-needs-a-cco-now/

Grant McCracken cites the recent Wal-Mart Girl Scout cookie debacle to demonstrate the corporate need for a Chief Culture Officer (CCO)—someone to “keep a finger on the pulse of fast-moving trends while developing a real understanding of the deep waves that move culture in America and the world.”

But the CCO is not just someone who keeps tabs on culture.  Regarding the Wal-Mart situation, Grant points out:

“Nobody needs a Chief Culture Officer to spot an idea as bad as this.   No, the reason Wal-Mart needs a CCO is because it needed someone inside the corporation with enough power to intercede.”

If there was ever an organization that needed a CCO, it is the modern American bank.  With the image of banks continuing to plummet, someone in the c-suite needs to be able to say, “We really shouldn’t do this right now,” and be taken seriously.

That would be outside-in banking at its most powerful.

The smart banker will be pre-ordering Grant’s new book, The Chief Culture Officer, immediately after reading this post.  I’ve read five of his previous books, and they’ve all been more than worthwhile.

Ein „Cliffhanger“ ist ein dramaturgischer Kniff, der bei Fortsetzungsromanen und Fernsehserien gerne eingesetzt wird um Leser und Zuschauer zu binden. Eine Folge endet, ohne dass die Teilhandlung bereits zu Ende erzählt wäre, so dass Zuschauer und Leser bis zur nächsten Folge in Spannung gehalten werden.

Cliffhanger (1993), Screenshot

„Cliffhanger“ ist aber auch der Titel eines Actionthrillers von 1993 mit Sylvester Stallone in einer Hauptrolle. Er spielt, seinem Talent fürs Serielle entsprechend, wieder jenen vereinsamten Typ Mann, mit traumatisierter Emotionalität, in diesem Fall einen Bergführer in den Rocky Mountains, der getreu dem Rat von Leonardo da Vinci „Wer nicht kann, was er will, soll wollen, was er kann.“, sich den Bösewichten entgegenstellt und diesen ein gnadenloses Ende bereitet. Die Kletterszenen des Films und eine Stelle in „Transformations“ von Grant McCracken haben sich mir etwas eigenwillig mit der Arbeit des Zeichnens und Malens, wie ich sie erlebe, verbunden.

Grant McCracken beschreibt zu Anfang des zweiten Kapitels im fünften Teil seines Buches „Transfomations“ mentale Techniken des Bergsteigens: das “Hineinzoomen” und das “Herauszoomen”.

In the world of rock climbing, there is “zooming out” and „zooming in“. Zooming out is what the climber does when she has a chance to rest on a mountain face. Zooming in is what she does when she is moving methodically across it. Zooming in demands concentration and constant movement. The climber is held to the rock face as if by surface tension. The Hand is set in motion with no clear knowledge of where it will come to rest. But it must eventually come to rest. Momentum is everything.

McCRACKEN, GRANT; Transformations, Bloomington & Indianapolis (Indiana University Press) 2008, S. 122

Das Herauszoomen ist leicht nachzuvollziehen, es ist ein Ausruhen in sicherer Position. Eine Erfahrung, die viele wahrscheinlich schon gemacht haben, vielleicht nicht in der Wand, am Berg, aber doch in schwierigem Gelände, plötzlich gibt es die Möglichkeit innezuhalten, auszurasten, in der Achtsamkeit nachzulassen, Kraft zu schöpfen. Das ist durchaus vergleichbar mit dem, was passiert, wenn man eine Arbeit, die große Konzentration erforderte, unterbricht oder beendet, dem mentalen Loslassen und Zurücktreten, dem Abfallen der Spannung und Abschweifen der Aufmerksamkeit .

Das Hineinzoomen dagegen ist schwieriger zu fassen.

Der Kernsatz der zitierten Stelle in dieser Hinsicht ist: „The climber is held to the rock face as if by surface tension.“ Es ist dieses spezielle Erlebnis, das jetzt, nachdem ich einige Zeit nur wenig gezeichnet und gemalt habe wieder besonders markant ist, dieses seltsame Empfinden, man treffe beim Arbeiten keine souveränen Entscheidungen aus der Distanz, die sich an Plänen, Vorgefasstem orientieren, sondern reagiere vielmehr direkt auf die unmittelbaren Erfordernisse des Bildes, als taste man sich mit äußerst gespannter Aufmerksamkeit im Unbekannten weiter, immer bereit die Anstrengung zu intensivieren.

Unangenehm wird es, wenn dieses flüssige Hin und Her von Wahrnehmen und Machen zu stocken beginnt oder abbricht, wenn man den Kontakt verliert, ins Basteln gerät, sich in fahrige Rückgriffe und zu den Schablonen der Routine flüchtet.

Ich kann lange Zeit unverdrossen an einer bestimmten Stelle des Bildes, einem Gesicht zum Beispiel, arbeiten, Partien wieder und wieder ändern, ohne dass ich das Gefühl habe ins Blaue hinein zu pfuschen. Ich intensiviere vielmehr das Ergebnis bis zu dem Punkt wo, es für mich stimmt. Außenstehende mutet das häufige Umarbeiten gewöhnlich wie sinnlose Erschwernis an, wo bereits frühere Zustände ihrer Meinung nach schon völlig zufriedenstellend waren. Für sie ist kaum zu unterscheiden zwischen bloß willkürlichen Änderungen und dem Insistieren auf einer bestimmten Resonanz.

KünstlerInnen bei der Arbeit sind in diesem Sinne auch häufig Cliffhanger und in Gefahr den Kontakt zur jeweiligen Arbeit zu verlieren, abzustürzen, nicht um den Preis von Verletzungen oder gar des Lebens, aber um den Preis verzweifelter Vergeblichkeit. Dazuhin ist das Zeichnen und Malen selbst, wie eine Soap-Opera, wie ein Fortsetzungsroman, ebenfalls durchsetzt von Cliffhangern, jenen Momenten, die die Spannung aufrecht erhalten, weiterführen, am Ende die Elemente des Bildes einander verflechten.

Dem korrespondiert eine Stelle aus dem Buch „Raum und Zeit“ von Pavel Florenskij.

FLORENSKIJ, PAVEL; Raum und Zeit, Berlin (Edition Kontext) 1997

Pavel Florenskij war ein russischer Theologe, Mathematiker, Natur- und Kunstwissenschaftler, der anfangs des zwanzigsten Jahrhunderts eine originelle Synthese aus zeitgenössischer Naturwissenschaft, Mathematik und Physik vor allem, orthodoxer Theologie und Neuplatonismus geschaffen hat.

Der Künstler bewegt sich mit seinem Aufzeichnungsmittel in diesem Raum wie auf unebenem Gelände […]. Er fühlt sich dann von den objektiven Arbeitsbedingungen, dem Relief des Geländes, in dem er arbeitet, gezwungen, gerade so und nicht anders zu verfahren, nicht das zu tun, was ihm wünschenswert erschiene, sondern im Gegenteil das Unerwünschte, ja sogar Unvorhergesehene. Er fährt gleichsam mit dem Bleistift über ein Blatt Papier, unter das ein Modell geschoben wurde, und die Bilder treten von selbst hervor. Dies ist die realistische Auffassung von Kunst.

FLORENSKIJ, PAVEL; Raum und Zeit, Berlin (Edition Kontext) 1997, S. 146

Noch einmal anders beschreibt dies Julio Cortàzar in Kapitel 82 seines grandiosen Romans „Rayuela“, den ich gerade wieder lese.

Carol Dunlop und Julio Cortàzar (1980)

Zuerst ist da eine konfuse Situation, die sich nur durch das Wort definieren lässt; von diesem Halbdunkel gehe ich aus, und wenn das, was ich sagen will (was sich sagen will) genügend Kraft besitzt, setzt sofort der swing ein, eine rhythmische Schwingung, die mich an die Oberfläche zieht und alles beleuchtet, die die ungeordnete Materie und den, der sie erleidet, in einer klaren und unausweichlichen dritten Instanz vereinigt : dem Satz, dem Abschnitt, der Seite, dem Kapitel, dem Buch. Diese rhythmische Bewegung, dieser swing, in welchem die ungeordnete Materie Gestalt annimmt, ist für mich die einzige Gewissheit ihrer Notwendigkeit, denn kaum endet sie, begreife ich, dass ich nichts mehr zu sagen habe. Und zugleich ist sie der einzige Lohn für meine Arbeit – ich fühle das, was ich geschrieben habe, wie den Rücken einer Katze, der sich unter der streichelnden Hand rhythmisch und funkensprühend hebt und senkt. So steige ich durch mein Schreiben in den Vulkan hinab, nähere mich den Müttern, verbinde mich mit der Mitte – was immer das sei. Schreiben bedeutet, mein Mandala zeichnen und es gleichzeitig durchlaufen, die Läuterung erfinden, indes man sich läutert; Fron des armen weißen Schamanen in Nylonunterhosen.

CORTÀZAR, JULIO; Rayuela, Frankfurt am Main (Suhrkamp Verlag) 1987, S. 460

Das Gefühl man führe eher aus, was sich sagen will, was sich einem zusagt, ins Bild drängt, das Werk sei also irgendwie schon da, der künstlerischen Arbeit vorgängig, das ist häufig dokumentiert. Damit verbindet sich die Vorstellung, dass es einer besonderen Gestimmtheit, einer konzentrierten Offenheit, ja, auch eines Ethos bedürfe um es dann letztlich auch realisieren zu können.

Nüchterner sieht das Oswald Wiener in seinem Aufsatz „Wer spricht?“.

Sehr bemerkenswert erscheint mir, dass ich häufig im Gefühl, ein richtiges und arbeitsfähiges Modell einer Situation zu besitzen, total unfähig bin, dieses Modell ins Bewusstsein zu heben, es in passenden Worten zu beschreiben. Reden, oder Schreiben, ist dann etwa wie ein Kritzeln mehr oder weniger zufälliger Formen und Warten auf zustimmende oder ablehnende Reaktionen des Organismus auf dieses sensorische Angebot: das Wiedererkennen ist sehr viel leichter als das Erzeugen. Also ersetze ich im Gekritzel immer wieder jene Züge, gegen die sich der Körper am meisten sträubt, und langsam, mühsam wächst das zu etwas, mit dem ich leben kann. Ist das ursprünglich anvisierte Modell erfasst? Wahrscheinlich nicht. Aber es ist etwas an seine Stelle getreten, das ich betrachten und manipulieren kann.

WIENER, OSWALD; Wer spricht?, in: Literarische Aufsätze, Wien (Löcker) 1998, S. 92 (Erstpublikation NZZ 12.10.1984)

My deep, abiding passion sits at the confluence of cars and culture.

For a while I thought I wanted to be the guy drawing cars but I soon came to realise I was more interested in the effect that cars have on people. The same goes for the flip-side: as the needs and wants of a culture change, people effect change on cars. It’s an engrossing cycle of cultural cause and effect.

So it was that I started my working life as a design strategist for the car industry. Like a pig in muck, I delight in observing the whys and hows of the choices people make when they buy a car. Connecting the emotional dots between the prospective customer’s personal needs, surface composition or the “face” of a brand and the eventual purchasing decision is a fascinating experience.

The most important lesson I’ve learnt, however, is that in my work my personal view counts for naught.

I’ve driven 400 Bhp bahnstormers that have left me stone cold and angry with the world (BMW 750i, Mercedes CL), been totally enchanted by an oddball French coupe that left others infuriated with it’s dynamic mediocrity (Renault Laguna) and I adore Volvo 200s and Citroen CXs. Clearly my automotive passions fall outside the mainstream.

Personally, I am but one consumer among millions (and one that’s unlikely to ever spend money on a new car). Professionally, however, it’s my job to elicit the passions, desires and fears both from individual customers and the cultural world they inhabit. I then filter this cocktail into a form that helps designer and eventual owner find a happy medium, that elusive product that sets synapses (and wallets) alight.

Grant McCracken has published a fascinating piece examining Bob Lutz’s role in GMs downfall. He argues that it was the former Car Czar’s imposition of his personal views on what a car should be, rather than understanding American culture, that lead to a yawning disconnect between American consumers and GM.

Of Lutz’s single-mindedness, McCraken has this to say:

“In point of fact, he knew relatively little about our culture. What Lutz knew was cars, and what he liked about cars, by all accounts, was speed….He loved muscles cars because they went fast. Lutz was worse than average as a river captain. I think it’s fairly safe to say that Lutz did not ever grasp the muscle car revival (the one portrayed by Hollywood in XXX, The Fast and the Furious, and now Fast and Furious). He must have gloried in the power and the glory and all that sound. Just as surely, he must have been mystified by fact that it was being produced in some case [sic] by tiny, winged Hondas.”

McCracken suggests that Lutz, to disastrous effect, let his personal emotions and story get in the way of understanding those of of GM customers. Lest we forget, this is the man that in the midst of the post-Inconvenient Truth environmental zeitgeist, declared global warming “…a total crock of shit.”.

Head over to McCracken’s blog to read the full piece, including an idea (one that I heartily support) about how the disconnect could have been avoided and why GM’s future, no matter what the courts have in store, looks bleak even after Maximum Bob’s departure.

Post script: My choice for Detroit Chief Cultural Officer? Freeman Thomas.

[Source: Grant McCracken, Chief Culture Officer: fixing Detroit now, 2009. Glenn Hunter, GM’s Lutz On Hybrids, Global Warming And Cars As Art, 2008] [Image: Andrew Philip Artois Smith]

“This is a non-rational business. It’s not irrational. But it’s not necessary for anyone to get a new car—almost ever.”

Jerry Hirshberg, former president of Nissan Design International

When Jerry Hirshberg uttered these words in an interview with Gary Vasilash of Automotive Design and Production back in 2002 he was fresh from taking part in a highly successful product renaissance at Nissan. He was at the height of his powers: making consumers fall in love with a product that they didn’t need.

Hirshberg was the guy that, when Nissan had sunk to a financial and creative low in the late 90’s, suggested reviving the Z. Clearly he knows how to pull at consumer heart strings to get a return on investment.

I don’t think we will ever eviscerate emotion from the car/human equation but what if the emotions we feel in relation to cars change? Imagine, for a minute, if automotive brands could no longer leverage power, size, opulence and selfishness as their emotional draw cards, but instead had to appeal with intelligence, authenticity, longevity and real value.

If you had asked me even 18 months ago if there was any merit to such a scenario I would have probably giggled and said that “premium” was the way forward. The world was on a wave of ever-more conspicuous consumption that drove car manufacturers to find ways to give everything they sold the touch of premium, no matter the effect on weight, practicality or the discordance with their brand image.

Well, there’s a developing school of thought that says that the consumer wave may be about to abate. Needless to say, the impact this could have on the way we design, market and support cars can’t be ignored.

Hiroko Tabuchi recently wrote in The New York Times (free sub required) about how consumer spending habits changed in Japan after the financial crisis of the 90’s. For starters, there has been a significant reduction in discretionary purchases with car sales falling by half since 1990 and retail spending rising by only 0.2% between 2001 and 2007. Even the well off seem to have changed their habits for good despite a return to health for the Japanese economy at large. Sales of luxury goods have plummeted with Louis Vuitton down by 10% in 2008 and a survey of men in their 20s found that only 25% were interested in buying a car, down from 48% in 2000.

Given that Japan is now entering a new period of, for want of a less ironic term, negative growth, the attitudes that these figures represent only stand to become more ingrained. Tabuchi quotes a 20 year old female college student as saying “I’m not interested in big spending, I just want a humble life”. The turn around in Japanese consumer thinking that this represents cannot be underestimated.

Grant McCracken, a blogging anthropologist, recently outlined three models of possible change in consumer spending. In doing so, he addresses the factors at play in a long-term scaling back of discretionary spending in western economies.

Using Tabuchi’s analysis as a basis, among others, McCracken suggested that the current crisis alone won’t be enough to change our deeply entrenched heavy-spending ways. But if, for example, the allure of competitive spending (otherwise known as “keeping up with the Joneses”) disappears along with the compulsion to be either on the bleeding edge or a fast follower of trends in fashion and technology then we might just get comfortable with spending less. Anecdotal evidence suggests that this is actually starting to take hold in some economies.

John Hockenberry, writing for Metropolis Mag, offers a similar assessment when he states “… after 2008, it is clear that the consumer aspiration to buy nothing—whether out of exhaustion, bankruptcy, or simply to pay other bills—has become a plausible narrative.”

This is all very well, you say, but we’re designers! What does this mean for us?

In the automotive and consumer product industries we strive to differentiate our products, and get people to buy them, not on the basis of their practical merits (which are by and large a given these days) but mostly on their emotional value.

For the last 60 years, designers have developed products for consumers looking for tangible indicators of their lifestyle as a means of communicating their place in the world to others. As trends in lifestyles change, so the demand for these indicators changes. Each time this happens manufacturers and designers embark on another round of projects as they seek to replace old products with ones that will drive more sales. Whether there is any functional improvement is often a moot point.

This cyclical relationship between consumers and designers has worked very well up to this point, driving massive economic growth. But where would automotive companies be left if the lifestyle is to buy nothing that is not necessary and we find ourselves in, as Hockenberry puts it, an “economy of no product”?

It may not be as big a problem as you first think. Given my recent post about repairing things and mutual musing here and over at Re*Move on the topic of a more democratic model of vehicle distribution, the components of the answer may already be under our nose.

By designing for longevity, reuse and repair and, crucially, redesigning the distribution, ownership and support system, car manufacturers might be able to continue, albeit in a radically different way, to build cars. Done right, these new products would possess the intelligence, authenticity, longevity and real value that will become the hallmarks of a post-consumerist culture.

The 64 billion dollar question is whether the behemoths of the industry could react fast enough and with enough conviction to capitalise on this scenario? Possibly not, although I continue to live in hope. The companies to watch closely, as I outlined in a recent interview over at Strategic Aesthetics, will be the small start-ups, unencumbered by history, politics and inertia.

Whichever way you look at it, however, the change won’t come easily, either for consumers or manufacturers. Both parties have both been on a giddy high of self-satisfaction for so long now that we can expect some kicking and thrashing as we go through withdrawal. Artificially delaying the process, as many governments are now looking to do through scrapping schemes, will only make the inevitable even more painful.

For all we know, we may soon come out the other side of this financial crisis with our consumptive habits bruised but intact and the car industry will go on doing what Hirshberg knows it does best. It seems rash, however, to not take this opportunity to consider what good, for both designers and society at large, could come out of the retreat of consumerism and it’s impact on the automotive industry.

[Sources: Grant McCracken, John Hockenberry, Hiroko Tabuchi Image: ATIS547 Thanks to Ralf at Vol. 2 design-management.de for pointing me to the original article]

Firstly, thanks to everyone that read, tweeted and commented upon my previous post on “Research vs Planning”. It’s dispersal backs up Ana Andjelic’s point on how word of mouth spreads through random spikes within overlapping spheres, and not through concentric circles of influence.

Reading material from the past week to consider include:

• Paul Graham’s new essay covers his learnings from Hacker News – many salient points for those interested in crowdsourcing

• Dougald Hine is looking for contributors to help mobilise the tech and social media spheres to provide resources for those adversely affected by the recession

• “Ethnography is not an in-home interview” – a great title, and a great post from Grant McCracken on why shoddy research is partially to blame for Tesco’s failings (to date) in the US

• Noah Brier muses on ratings systems, and how we each have our own idiosyncratic interpretations of them

• Are some brands, products and companies unsinkable? No matter how inferior or dated, they will carry on indefinitely? This look at Wimpy fast food “restaurants” would suggest that it is possible. Incidentally, I live 10 minutes away from a Wimpy and despite a nostalgic desire to visit for a lime milkshake, I haven’t yet managed it.

• A Business Insider post contains Videojug’s ideas on why web adverts should be more like TV commercials. Essentially, they argue moving away from the print notion of wallpaper ads to a TV notion of interruptive ads. This goes against the “engagement vs interruption” advocates, but that school of thought, in my opinion, is a slightly Utopian mindset that won’t scale to the entire marketplace.

• On a related theme, an Advertising Age blog wonders whether it is time to forget measurement in digital campaigns. A slightly misleading title, as it really refers to DR metrics, but a thoughtful post on how the internet has changed over the past 15 years, yet measurement hasn’t.

• And finally, a couple of interviews worth reading – Robin Wright in the Guardian, and James Murdoch in More Intelligent Life

sk

Über die Feiertage am Ende des letzten Jahres hatte ich auf Lanzarote Zeit, mich eingehender mit dem jüngsten Buch von Grant McCracken, „Transformations“, zu beschäftigen. Ich bin ein Grant McCracken-Fan und hoffe ungeniert, einige anzuregen, sich mit den Ideen, Überlegungen und Büchern von Grant McCracken zu befassen. Auf Deutsch ist von Grant McCracken derzeit leider nur „Big Hair – Der Kult um die Frisur“ im Antiquariatsbuchhandel erhältlich. Die Bücher sind aber auch im amerikanischen Original gut zu lesen.

Foto: Pierce Fawkes/Flikr

Grant McCracken ist Kulturanthropolge. Er sieht seine Arbeit, wie er in seinem Blog feststellt, auf Schnittstelle von Anthropologie und Ökonomie situiert. Er ist in Vancouver an der Westküste von Kanada geboren und aufgewachsen. Grant McCracken hat an der Universität von Chicago promoviert und war Direktor des Institute of Contemporary Culture am Royal Ontario Museum; später hat er außerdem an der Havard Business School unterrichtet und war Mitarbeiter des MIT Laboratory for Branding Cultures. Dem MIT in Cambridge, Massachusetts, USA, ist er immer noch als Wissenschaftler assoziiert. Grant McCracken hat zudem als Unternehmensberater gearbeitet, zum Beispiel für Chrysler, Coca-Cola, Diageo, General Mills, HP, IKEA, Subway, Unilever, Microsoft und Kodak.

Für weitere biografische Informationen verweist GrantMcCracken auf ein Statement seines zehnjährigen Neffen Andrew mit dem Titel „Mein Lieblingsverwandter”.

“My favorite relative is my uncle, Grant McCracken. He married my Mom’s sister, Pam, last November. He is my favorite relative because he decided to have the wedding in Montreal, Canada. The wedding was on Saturday so I had to miss a day of school. He is funny because whenever we see him, he says “shake a paw”. I like him because he also likes Star Wars. He is a good listener and he always listens to what we have to say. My uncle is a writer, so he wants us to write well, and do well in school. He has published quite a few books about cultural anthropology. Some people hire him, so he travels around the country to interview people. I don’t know why, but he likes to shave his head. Grant also likes to read. Grant likes to take walks and jump in the pool with his clothes on. In conclusion, these are the reasons why my Uncle Grant is my favorite relative.”

Wichtige Veröfffentlichungen von Grant McCracken sind „Culture and Consumption”, “Culture and Consumption II: Markets, Meaning and Brand Management” sowie “Flock and Flow: Predicting and Managing Change in a Dynamic Marketplace”.

In seinem jüngsten Buch, „Transformations“, beschäftigt er sich mit dem Identitäten, deren Ausdruck und die Obsession unserer Kultur: die Kontinuität des Wandels.

Grant McCracken gilt als einer der führenden Kulturanthropologen unserer Zeit.

Wer sich eine erste Vorstellung vom Denken den Überlegungen von Grant McCracken verschaffen möchte, kann sich den Vortrag anhören, den er 2004 während der Pop!Tech in Camden, Maine, USA, gehalten hat, oder auch das Video von seiner Präsentation während der „PSFK Conference New York 2008“ anschauen

Download Video

Seine Formulierung, „Material culture makes culture material.“ Ist so lapidar, dass man geneigt ist, achselzuckend mit „Ja, klar!“ oder „Ja, … und?!“ zu antworten, ohne weiter noch nachzudenken. Im Kontext der Arbeit von McCracken meint die Feststellung aber nichts weniger, als dass die zeitgenössischen westlichen Gesellschaften aus Gebrauchs- und Konsumgütern längst Kulturgüter gemacht haben, die sich der Dynamik von Moden und Trends verbinden. McCracken macht deutlich, dass die Figur des marktrationalen homo oeconomicus diese Entwicklung nicht ausreichend erklärt und dass die wirtschaftliche Dynamik nicht ohne ihr kulturelles Komplement verstanden werden kann. Die Wirtschaft entnimmt der Kultur Bedeutungen, Stories und bindet diese an Produkte, die wiederum Teil der zeitgenössischen Kultur und deren Veränderungen werden. Es ist also unsinnig in einer Gesellschaft wie der unseren, die ökonomische, technische und kulturelle Entwicklung so sehr verzahnt hat, diese grundsätzlich getrennt zu betrachten.

Für McCracken sind „Ernst“ und „Unterhaltung“ keine Gegensätze. Die Scheidung von Künstlern, Intellektuellen und Publikum in „Apokalyptiker und Integrierte“ (U. Eco) ist unproduktiv und obsolet. „Apokalyptiker“, das sind jene, die das stete Vordringen der Massenkultur, der Kulturindustrie (M. Horkheimer, T. W. Adorno), der Populärkultur als Verwahrlosung, Niedergang und Verfall begreifen, „Integrierte“ dagegen sind die Apologeten dieser Massenkultur. Unsere postmoderne Kultur agiert schon lange nicht mehr entlang dieser Frontlinien und ist mit dieser Begrifflichkeit auch nicht wirklich gut zu verstehen. Es bringt kaum Ertrag, derb vereinfachend „Qualität“ gegen „Marktgängigkeit“ zu setzten. Sinnvoll wäre es, sich die eigenen Präferenzen zu begründen, die Konstituenten der persönlichen Wahl, die Dispositive des eigenen „Geschmacks“ zu erhellen und produktiv zu diskutieren und nicht nur apologetisch zu postulieren. Ich würde heute soweit gehen, die Rauferei zwischen den „Ernsten“ und den „Unterhaltern“ gänzlich als Gerangel um Status und nicht um Inhalte zu verstehen.

Die verbreitete Verachtung der Intellektuellen, der „chattering class“, für die Populärkultur, ihre Subkulturen, für Mode und Trends, für „Fashion“ hat es lange erschwert ein anderes begriffliches Instrumentarium für die Untersuchung, das Verständnis und die Bewertung kultureller Hervorbringungen zu entwickeln, zu präzisieren und maßgeblich zu machen, das sowohl den Unterschieden innerhalb der zeitgenössischen Kultur, der zeitgenössischen Kulturen gerecht wird, als auch den Zusammenhang mit dem ökonomischen Kontext herausarbeitet. Selbst bei Nischen-, Rand- und Gegenkulturen lassen sich die Funktionalitäten von Moden und Trends aufweisen. Wichtig ist es, sich darüber klar zu werden, dass es dabei nicht um bloße „Oberflächlichkeiten“, entleerten Konsum, sich handelt, sondern um Prozesse der Selbstverständigung, Selbstvergewisserung und der Selbsterneuerung innerhalb unserer Gesellschaft und unserer Kultur. In dieser Kultur ist jede Kleinigkeit wichtig, signifikant. Es gibt streng genommen nichts Überflüssiges im Überfluss. Es gibt keine leere Wahl – manche Entscheidung mag nicht besonders wichtig sein, sie realisiert aber dennoch eine Differenz, macht einen Unterschied und plötzlich vielleicht den Unterschied.

McCracken zeigt und reflektiert in seiner Arbeit mit einer gut strukturierten Fülle von Materialien eine Entwicklung, die schon an den Höfen und in den Gesellschaften der Renaissance sichtbar wird und die bis heute anhält. Eine Entwicklung, die immer weitere Bereiche der Gesellschaft transformierend aktiviert. Sein jüngstes Buch „Transformations“ widmet sich der Genese und der Wirkung dieser Transformationen, die unsere heutige, die postmoderne Gesellschaft hervorgebracht haben und bestimmen.

GRANT McCRACKEN; Transformations, (Indiana University Press) Bloomington & Indianapolis 2008

Das Buch ist eine Tour d‘Horizon, bei der die Funktion von Ritualen und Mythen in traditionellen Gesellschaften ebenso untersucht wird, wie die Musik von Ani DiFranco, der Feminismus und die Mechanismen des sozialen Aufstiegs vom Beginn der Neuzeit bis heute, Popper, Mooks, Limp Bizkit und Fred Durst, jede Menge Filme und das “Brightwork“ im amerikanischen Autodesign, das ab Mitte der fünfziger Jahre des vergangenen Jahrhunderts den klassischen, am Bauhaus geschulten Modernismus eines Raymond Loewy mit einem Schlag verdrängte und … und …und – knapp 430 Seiten Spannung und Vergnügen bis hin zu den Anmerkungen.

Im Gegensatz zu der in der Nachfolge der Franzosen Lacan, Foucault, Baudrillard, Derrida und anderen seit den siebziger Jahren des vergangenen Jahrhunderts vielfach verbreiteten Rede vom „Tod des Menschen“, stellt McCracken in unseren postmodernen Gesellschaften eine Vervielfachung des Menschen, d.h. des Menschenbildes, der Identitäten und einen expansiven Individualismus fest. („French Thinking“ scheint nur eingeschränkt seine Wertschätzung zu genießen.) Allen Unkenrufen zum Trotz ist das postmoderne Ich keineswegs ein eingeschüchtertes, verzagtes und desorientiertes Wesen:

„There is no sign of fatal compromise, of systemic instability, of debilitating confusion, self-doubt, or incoherence. On the contrary, the postmodern self is robust, perhaps even bumptious. […] And even in the face of accumulating difficulties, it makes ever larger claims to variety, authority and autonomy.” (McCRACKEN; Transformations, S. 300)

Das postmoderne Ich ist ein globales Ich, “a global self”, das verschiedene, auch widersprüchliche Identitäten in sich vereint, offen für neue ist und bereit, alte zu modifizieren oder aufzugeben, es versteht sich weitgehend als Autor seiner selbst. Der Wechsel, der Umbau und die Anpassung der Identitäten geschieht zum Teil spielerisch, zum Teil aus purer Neugier, oft jedoch auch unter dem Druck eines plötzlichen und schnellen Wandels der Lebensbedingungen, was einen rasch improvisierten, neuen Selbstentwurf nötig macht. Das postmoderne Ich verfügt mehr und mehr über ein “Portfolio” verschiedener, zum Teil ironisierter Identitäten, es zeigt unterschiedliche Gesichter, ist im Fluss. Überraschend vielleicht, aber dennoch gilt:

“Somehow, the players sustain a unity of consciousness, however much diversity or discontinuity exists within.” (McCRACKEN, S. 302)

Vorbilder und Modelle und Anregungen werden der zeitgenössischen Kultur, vor allem auch der Populärkultur entnommen.

“In a culture of expansionary individualism, it is almost as if anything permitted in art is now expected in life.” (McCRACKEN, S. 303)

Bereits eingangs seines Buches „Transformations“ stellt Grant McCracken unverblümt fest:

„Entertainment Is Dead, Long Live Transformation“

Die Konzeption klassischer Massenmedien, die einem Massenpublikum maßgefertigte Inhalte vorsetzten, konfligiert zunehmend mit der Agilität des Menschen der Postmoderne, der nicht mehr mit der Rolle des passiven Konsumenten zufrieden ist, sondern über das Erlebnis zur Teilhabe an den formativen und kreativen Prozessen drängt. Die Erschwinglichkeit, die Verbreitung und die Möglichkeiten der neuen Technologien unterstützen dies. Die Auseinandersetzungen um „geistiges Eigentum“, um die Gesetzgebung zum Copyright, um Internettauschbörsen, Filesharing, Sampling, Fair Use, Fanfiction und anderes verdeutlichen es zusätzlich.

Dies wird auch für die Künste nicht folgenlos bleiben. Die Renaissance, vor allem auch das Traktat über die Malerei von Leon Battista Alberti (Lateinisch: De Pictura 1435, Italienisch: Della Pittura1436) prägten ein wirkungs- und erlebnisorientiertes Bild- und Kunstverständnis. In seiner Darstellung der Perspektive als Methode zur Konstruktion von Bildern, die das Sehen imitieren, vergleicht Alberti das Rechteck des Bildes mit einem geöffneten Fenster („una finestra aperta“, Della Pittura, Kap. 19), das ausschnitthaft den Blick auf eine Handlung, auf, wenn man so will, Action, freigibt. Er fordert, die im Bild gezeigte Handlung müsse, ingeniös komponiert, körperlich und seelisch bewegte Figuren zeigen, damit der Betrachter belehrt, bewegt und erfreut werde.

Die Arbeit an und in der Lücke zwischen Kunst und Leben, einem der zentralen Motive der Moderne, erhält in der Postmoderne neuen, ungeahnten Schub durch das Aufkommen des benutzbaren Bildes der virtuellen Welten, der Touchscreens, des Gamedesigns, des Web 2.0 und der „Augmented Realities“. Wir verlassen unseren Beobachterstandpunkt und treten ein ins Bild. Wir tauschen den Blick in den Albertischen Bildraum ein gegen einen aktiven Part in einer Bilderwelt.

Der “Long-Tail-Ökonomie” (ANDERSON, CHRIS; The Long Tail, (Hyperion) New York 2006) des „New Capitalism“ mit den sich diversifizierenden Märkten und dem Credo, „Sell less of more.“, entspricht eine Kultur, die zu Lasten des kulturellen Zentrums, des massenmedialen Mainstreams, mehr und mehr zu einer Art „Long-Tail-Kultur“ wird, in der Teilkulturen und ihre Protagonisten transformatorisch agieren. Dabei hat das postmoderne Ich keine Schwierigkeiten, mehr oder weniger aktiver Teil verschiedener Teilkulturen zugleich zu sein.

Vielleicht sollten wir es trainingshalber öfter mit Sergio Zyman, einem früheren Senior Vice President von Coca-Cola halten, der einmal die Teilnehmer eines Meeting unvermittelt damit konfrontierte: „OK, I want to try something else. How about this? You’re the Catholic Church. What do you do?“. Jeder hatte die Parallele aufzugreifen und eine Antwort zu geben, einigen fehlte dazu Beweglichkeit. (McCRACKEN; Transformations, S. 248)

ALBERTI, LEON BATTISTA; Della Pittura – Über die Malkunst, Herausgegeben von Oskar Bätschmann und Sandra Gianfreda, (Wissenschaftliche Buchgesellschaft) Darmstadt 2007

McCRACKEN, GRANT; Transformations, (Indiana University Press) Bloomington & Indianapolis 2008

ANDERSON, CHRIS; The Long Tail – Der lange Schwanz. Nischenprodukte statt Massenmarkt – Das Geschäft der Zukunft. (Hanser Wirtschaft) München 2007

ECO, UMBERTO; Apokalyptiker und Integrierte – Zur kritischen Kritik der Massenkultur, (Fischer Verlag) Frankfurt am Main 1984

Grant McCracken (who is firing on all cylinders right now, by the way) recently turned his McCrackenian lens (ooh, did I just coin a new phrase?) on the new Nip/Tuck promo spots. Great post, go read it now. Here’s the video. (Sorry, had trouble with the embedding)

This is a great example of a brand that has lost any semblances of fear. That’s a very powerful thing. When you aren’t scared that people won’t get it, or that they will be offended, or that they will hate it you can come up with really great stuff.

I know this isn’t exactly a revelation, but it’s amazing how few brands are able to get into that place.

That our education system is not from this century is a somewhat trivial statement. It is trivial in the sense that education has not changed fundamentally in the last ten years. It is not trivial in the sense that the present generation comes ready with a set of skills and expectations developed in a technical world that has little resemblance with the past. This is one of the themes Grant McCracken and Kerry Howley discuss over at bloggingheads.tv.

From experiences with the current generation of students, I can largely agree with this statement. One often gets the feeling that young people seem to have trouble adjusting to this antiquated surrounding called university. For this reason I am currently trying to get an introductory course going that tries to familiarize students with science and the university while at the same time exploring the possibilities of a wide range of new technological means in this educational context. Michael Wesch is definitely one of the inspirations for such a project.

Part 2 of the link update for December, and my final post of 2008 (barring unforeseen events).

Media channels

Scott Karp at publishing 2.0 channels Seth Godin with his call to arms for the print industry. The market and the internet don’t care if you make money, and the industry needs to adapt if it is to survive.

Futurescape have shared three of their excellent reports on web series, while the Observer looks at the successes of several of them. Check out my twelve shows to check out here

Grant McCracken wonders why TV revenues are holding while viewing declines. I haven’t seen the data he is quoting, but in the UK overall viewing is actually pretty robust (it is just fragmenting). I would also argue that TV is better suited to adapt to the new media landscape than radio or press, though I’m sure people from those respective industries would vehemently disagree.

The New York Times’ 8th annual Year in Ideas (some better than others)

A 25 point manifesto for the music industry

Music Ally has a load of predictions for digital music in 2009

Marketing and business

Apathy Sketchbook has accumulated a magnificently comprehensive list of all the terrible PR formulae masked as science. Harks back to my Bad Research post.

With ROI discussions threatening to jump the shark (if they haven’t already), everyone should read Lewis Green’s reminder of what ROI actually is, and how it differs from value.

Seth Godin asks when you create a new product or brand, are you making a new market or taking from an old one?

I’ve already linked to Gareth Kay’s excellent slideshare presentation, but this summary contains some great comments on the problems of planning.

Tom Peters has 27 practical ideas to transform your organisation

The Ad Freak awards for 2008.

Le’Nise Brothers has some great advice on digital media planning

The Advertising Lab has published 19 tips for in-game advertising

Brand Strategy has 9 tips for businesses in 2009

A MetaFilter thread on products where it is better to spend more on quality – can this advice still be adhered to in the current climate?

In a nice piece of bricks and mortar experiential marketing, P&G opened a store for its coupons on Black Friday.

Miscellaneous

The Big Picture is one of THE great web innovations by traditional media, and their year in pictures is a must

Foreign Policy again publish the ten stories you would have probably missed over the past year – which is shocking, given the importance of them

Malcolm Gladwell uses quarterbacks and teachers to ask why we hire people when we don’t know if they will succeed

12 fascinating and mysterious criminal cases does exactly what it says on the tin – includes Abe Lincoln and Lizzie Borden among others

The life of Carl Ponzi – after whom Ponzi Schemes (a form of pyramid selling) take their name

Hitotoki brings together literary tales of visits to specific parts of London.

Particular commendation goes to The market and the internet don’t care if you make money, Year in Ideas, terrible PR formulae masked as science, what ROI actually is, The Big Picture and ten stories you would have probably missed over the past year

That is me well and truly spent for the year. It’s been a blast. I hope everyone has a wonderful Christmas, and I’ll be back in 2009.

sk

Barack Obama won the most resounding popular vote of any Democratic Presidential candidate since Lyndon Johnson in 1964. But you’d never know it by the tone of his victory speech. Did you notice? After loping on stage — appearing more subdued than any President-elect in recent history, as ABC News’ George Stephanopolous noted — Obama spoke in a style that seems to me to parallel that of an ever-growing crop of corporate chiefs: modest and pragmatic, without the swagger we’re all so tired of. Procter & Gamble’s (PG) A.G. Lafley and Disney’s (DIS) Bob Iger are two examples. (We’ll see how credible Iger is when Disney reports earnings Thursday.)

As I watched last night, I couldn’t stop thinking of what my friend, the actress/performance artist/playwright Anna Deavere Smith, has told me about Obama’s style of communicating: “His cadence and rhythm suggests BOTH inspiration and practical task doing.  Some of his sentences are like lists. So there’s a blend of the promise of greater things ahead but the clarity of tasks to do.” Listen closely to Obama, and you’ll hear him strike the last syllable of each sentence with an unusual beat that communicates assurance. “He is in fact, not overpromising,” as Anna (who, incidentally, is in the stunning movie Rachel Getting Married, in theaters now) told me this morning.

Another smart take on Obama’s speech patterns: “He enters that last syllable like a lion and leaves it like a lamb. And that’s because, well, he’s really merely stating the obvious and it would be unseemly to pound the gavel or make a fuss.” This comes from a blogger named Grant McCracken, whom I don’t know but claims to have received a Ph.D. in anthropology from the University of Chicago, taught at the Harvard Business School, and has done ethnography work for Campbell Soup (CPB) and Coca-Cola (KO). Obama’s voice, McCracken notes, is a bit like Walter Cronkite — who, remember, once was the most trusted person in America.

In times of crisis, such as now, leaders can either blare the alarm — which might cause many to run for the hills. Or leaders can call, with modesty, for us to work together toward recovery. Our next president seems to be doing the latter. On on — all together now.

P.S. Obama has reportedly chosen Rahm Emanuel as his chief of staff. For great insight into the brilliant and complex Chicago Congressman, read this profile that my colleague Nina Easton, Fortune’s Washington editor, did two years ago.

There’s a reason I love reading Grant McCracken beyond the fact that the man can write. Or the fact that he’s an anthropologist studying pop culture and branding. Or the fact that he’s been on Oprah. It’s because he so obviously relishes dashing our old and dear mental constructs against the rocks of the present moment.

As he does so nicely in his blog posting about the Microsoft answer to the Mac campaign – the “I’m A PC” campaign. Being an old member myself of the avant-garde (specifically the post-Beat post-modern post-Language Poets school of poetry in San Francisco), reading that distinctions such as avant-garde and bougeoise are no longer valid is both jolting and liberating. Wow. So that’s what I did when I took a job in advertising back in 1988. I was fragmenting, not going over to the dark side. Phew.

Dichotomy. Oh that the world were still so simple.

Mr. McCracken’s writings have had a significant impact on our thinking about building Brand Cultures. Although, as an anthropologist he might hate that we borrowed the anthropological concept of “culture” as a metaphor for building a brand. I don’t know. But his take on this business, and human kind, is always illuminating and inspiring.

- Doug

Marketing types, and I’ll generously include myself in this group, like to talk about ‘the conversation’ and ‘the dialogue’ between consumers and brands. I try to read a variety of marketing/branding/PR/Advertising blog and have noticed something: Many of the blogs have very few comments. Here’s a very unscientific survey - I looked at the front page of several blogs, looked at the number of posts and the total number of comments:

PSFK: Posts:36, Comments: 57 (Avg. # comments per post: 1.58)

Brand Autopsy: Posts: 30, Comments: 192 (Avg. # comments per post: 6.4)

Influential Marketing Blog: Posts 10, Comments: 36 (Avg. # comments per post: 3.6)

Murketing: Posts 15, Comments: 7 (Avg. # comments per post: .47)

Grant McCracken: Posts 14, Comments 65 (Avg. # comments per post: 4.64)

Eyecube: Posts 10, Comments 7 (Avg. # comments per post: .7)

Online Marketer Blog: Posts 5, Comments 24 (Avg. # comments per post: 4.8)

Again, this is a rather arbitrary analysis. I think all of the above are super smart people who all have a different approach and style.

Let’s take a look at the Top five blogs on the AdAge Power 150 to see what that looks like under the same litmus test:

Seth Godin: N/A, doesn’t host comments on site.

Search Engine Land: Posts: 20, Comments: 8 (Avg. # comments per post: .4)

Copyblogger: Posts: 6, Comments: 241(Avg. # comments per post: 40.17)

Search Engine Watch: N/A

Adrants: Posts: 25, Comments: 34 (Avg. # comments per post: 1.36)

So it seems that having a robust comment system isn’t a particular help nor hindrance.

Now, as a contrast I’m going to take a look at two websites I really enjoy that aren’t directly related to marketing/branding/PR/Advertising:

The Sartorialist: Posts: 40, Comments: 3477 (Avg. # comments per post: 86.92)

Arsenal America: Posts: 10, Comments: 800 (Avg. # comments per post: 80.00)

*Note – I’m the founder of Arsenal America.

Pretty striking difference, huh? Now, obviously this doesn’t take quality of comments into account, but let’s assume all of the above have their fair share of dross as well as intelligent commentary. Is the online marketing community missing something here?

Would a marketing blog consisting only of photos engender more community-based dialogue? 

Would a blog focusing on the marketing of a specific sports team generate robust, passionate discussion?

Are we all so busy blogging ourselves that we don’t have the time to fully engage in online conversation with our peers?

Lots of questions, I’d love to hearing your thoughts, so please leave a comment!

Interesting New York is this Saturday. Here are the speakers…

Interesting New York Speakers - Wordle style

Aaron Dignan, Alexandru Rosu, Allan Benamer, Amber Finlay, Azita Houshiar, Bernard Leibov, Bryan Fuhr, Bud Melman, Charles Rosen, Colin Nagy, Dallas Penn, David Art Wales, Dipti Bramhandkar, Doug Jaeger, Faris Yakob, Gaurav Mishra, Grant McCracken, Hillel Cooperman, Irving Slesar, James Cooper, Jeff Tuller, Jennifer Wright, Joel Johnson, Kevin Slavin, Mark Baltazar, Michael Karnjanaprakorn, Morgan Friedman, Nick Parish, Noah Brier, Scott Ballum               

By any reckoning that is an awesome list of thoughtful, dynamic and ‘interesting’ people. At $35 a ticket it’s about $1.20 per speaker.

Major kudos to David Nottoli for putting this program, and event, together.

Grant McCracken - Cultural Anthropolist

Grant McCracken is an Interesting alum, having previously spoken at Interesting London. I’m excited to see him because, as an avid reader of his blogs and books, I know he’s going to bring a unique perspective on whatever he speaks about. His topic for Interesting New York? Let’s let Grant explain:

“My wife says I have it. I feel quite strongly you have it. So that makes everyone. We all have Asperger’s Syndrome. Right?”

See what I mean? Didn’t see that coming, did you?  You should definitely check out his blog by the way, he’s working on a very cool tool that allows you to search his blog posts related to brands.

Clive Thompson has an excellent article in the New York Times right now that you simply must read. Go ahead. It’s a long article, but really, you need to read it. Seriously, this can wait.

Now that you’ve read it, you agree there’s so much good stuff in it, that it’s hard to know where to start. But I picked this place, late in the article, because it’s something I’ve been thinking about:

“Yet Ahan knows that she cannot simply walk away from her online life, because the people she knows online won’t stop talking about her, or posting unflattering photos. She needs to stay on Facebook just to monitor what’s being said about her. This is a common complaint I heard, particularly from people in their 20s who were in college when Facebook appeared and have never lived as adults without online awareness. For them, participation isn’t optional. If you don’t dive in, other people will define who you are. So you constantly stream your pictures, your thoughts, your relationship status and what you’re doing — right now! — if only to ensure the virtual version of you is accurate, or at least the one you want to present to the world.”

Last week, in my first installment of social media rules, I wrote that the social costs of silence for a brand were large. When I read the paragraph above, I kept placing Brand in the place of Ahan.

A brand can’t simply walk away from its online life. It needs to be continually monitoring what is said about it. Some brands do a really good job at that.

The second thing that I took from the article is the notion of “passive updating.” This is a meme from another Canadian writer and thinker named Grant McCracken called Status Casting. This is the notion that someone’s status is a critical thing to promote to people.

This is especially true for younger people who are emerging brands. And it’s obviously true of brands.
The goal of a brand is ‘ambient awareness’. It’s not one that is easily achievable, but it’s certainly a goal. If a people were ‘ambiently aware’ of a brand, when a purchase decision comes along, they will more than likely think of the brand.

Think of status casting as a non-interruptive, passive way of updating fans on what’s going on with the brand. it doesn’t matter what tool a brand uses, it matters that it stays true to the brand, it entertains, and it engages.

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The saga of Mad Men and Twitter continues to grow. Check out this site: We Are Sterling Cooper, which is chronicling the story as it happens. Here’s their manifesto:

Fan fiction. Brand hijacking. Copyright misuse. Sheer devotion. Call it what you will, but we call it the blurred line between content creators and content consumers, and it’s not going away. We’re your biggest fans, your die-hard proponents, and when your show gets cancelled we’ll be among the first to pass around the petition. Talk to us. Befriend us. Engage us. But please, don’t treat us like criminals.

This site exists to catalogue the conversation around AMC’s Mad Men and its fanbase across the social web. But it’s just the beginning. ‘We are Sterling Cooper’ is a rallying cry to brands and fans alike to come together and create together.

This is a casestudy in Deeply Immersive Narrative Universe (DINU) behaviour. I’m sure Henry Jenkins, Grant McCracken and others are seeing this and nodding their heads.

So some political scientist (David Kilcullen) decides to call his counterinsurgency work “conflict ethnography.” Do we take that at face value as ethnography? On what basis is the Human Terrain System “anthropology” as Grant McCracken celebrates it, bemoaning that anthropology is only ever really applied when it is applied in dominating other nations and murdering those who oppose U.S. hegemony? Failing that, it is a “museum piece.” On what basis do we call it a “radical new experiment,” when there is a long history of anthropological service to imperialism, a fact promoted by Montgomery McFate in her own writing? Anyone who knows anything at all about anthropology in the last 30 years would know that we have had these debates before, and anthropologists have served in counterinsurgency programs long before now. So why feign such ignorance, or is it real ignorance? Why the preposterous claims to “novelty” when there is nothing new here? Why the foolish appropriation of the term “radical” in connection with an ideologically reactionary stance and imperial militarism? How many more times will the degraded salesmen pitch their product in such hackneyed terms? Why not just stand for what you mean to say, and what you mean to think, instead of couching it in such awfully banal language of “NEW!”, “experimental!”, “applied!” and “radical!”?

Unless Grant McCracken’s audience consists entirely of teens, or the irredeemably ignorant, he should do readers a favour and treat them as if they had intelligence, and failing that, at least some tiny amount of knowledge. Then again, maybe he is safe to assume that they are hopeless cretins, given some of the garbled comments I read on his blog.

Otherwise, my final question is a purely mathematical one: is the bullshit about the Human Terrain system INFINITE in quantity, or is it finite, that is, does it have an actual end?

Commenting on my post on PR and Change (here), Indy at http://enoptron.blogspot.com/ noted that: “Some businesses have people/departments who actually specialise in communicating with internal audiences.”  This approach is probably the best I’ve seen.  They work behind the scenes with advice and hands-on support. Indy continues:

Frankly, if the job is being left to PR people, it’s usually not a good solution. If you come up through the ranks of PR you do tend to have a skill-set/knowledge base focused on external audiences. There are PR people talented enough to turn their hand to internal matters, but it’s not something automatically successful.

Indy’s point on skill-set and knowledge base didn’t immediately come to mind when I wrote my original post.  But that helps explain the blind spot when working internally — PR is “hidden” by the brand or spokespeople during external campaigns, PR’s involvement is much more transparent to internal audiences.

Finally, the last paragraph makes an essential point — cascaded strategy and change must have multiple communication channels.  As Indy notes:

It is true that people trust and accept messages more when they come from peers and line managers. However, it’s also true that those groups of people can be “blocking filters” who do not transmit certain things.

Ceris62 (no blog link) suggests that social media has potential for mediating these discussions without internal messengers (or at least not formal or “approved” messengers).  I believe that’s true, but with a caveat: many of these initiatives are also driven by marketing-focused colleagues as well.  The association with marketing/PR does contribute to skepticism, especially at start-up.  However, that barrier is much lower and weaker in my experience, validating Ceris62’s general direction.