Innovation stagnation

The New York Times had this great article yesterday about how difficult it is sometimes to look beyond what you know and think like a beginner. Innovation becomes more difficult as knowledge and expertise increase.

I'm reminded of the clever "ideating" ad campaign from IBM.

"Funny"

Check out The "Blog" of "Unnecessary" Quotation Marks.

What are you selling?

Here's a nice post from Jonathon that challenges you to look beneath the surface. What fears, insecurities, aspirations, and desires are marketers playing on when they promote their products?

For instance, WalMart has recently changed their marketing campaign to focus on saving you money and how that can help you live a better life. Their not selling their products in the ads, they're selling thrift.

A few others to add to Jonathon's list:

- Bud Light doesn't sell the taste of their beer, they sell humor and good times.
- Cadillac doesn't sell cars, they sell style and acceptance.
- Volvo doesn't sell cars, they sell safety.
- Microsoft doesn't sell software, they sell productivity.
- Visa doesn't sell debt, they sell paying convenience.
- Home Depot doesn't sell their tools, they sell DIY confidence and assistance.
- L'Oreal doesn't sell cosmetics, they sell beauty.
- Pfizer doesn't sell drugs, they sell well-being.

Clever outdoor ads

Many advertisers, realizing the need to rise above the marketing din, are getting creative in their quest for our attention. Here are a few examples of some really creative outdoor ads.

Images link to their source.

The silent majority

In the one week since I published the Logo-palooza post, this site has been visited over 20,000 times. The source for most of the traffic has been StumbleUpon where the post has been recommended by several users of that site.

The point I wanted to make about this is that you would never guess the popularity of that post by looking at it. As of this morning it has received a total of 12 comments. It has been seen and read over 20,000 times but only 12 people commented.

But the more I think about it, I don't think this is all that unusual. Think about all the articles we read online - all the news stories and blog posts. Most of the time we don't have a good reason to leave a comment. Unless we disagree with the author or feel compelled to add something, we often simply move on and read the next thing.

Long before the Web there was user-participation in talk radio. And with that medium too, a small percentage of the audience called in to offer their opinion. Most people just listened.

As more organizations look for ways to use the Web to "better connect with and engage their customers," the trick will be finding creative ways to comfort, stimulate, and motivate them to action. But companies need to realize that, despite their best efforts and intentions, many of their customers may prefer to stay silent.

Pensionbook

It's a Facebook for seniors. (No not high school seniors.) Lots of funny details.

Follow-up on digital footprints

I wrote a couple weeks ago about our online tracks - the posts, pictures, quotes and mentions about a person that can be found through search engines and can influence everything from dating to employment.

Now the folks at the Pew Internet Center have released a report looking at this same issue. Here are some of the findings:

Internet users are becoming more aware of their digital footprint; 47% have searched for information about themselves online, up from just 22% five years ago. However, few monitor their online presence with great regularity. Just 3% of self-searchers report that they make a regular habit of it and 74% have checked up on their digital footprints only once or twice.

In addition to providing national telephone survey data, the full report (PDF) also includes quotes from online survey respondents as well as experts in the fields of privacy, online identity management and search.

Friday fun: Zoom zoom

Check out the incredible hi-res imagery at Gigapan that allows you to zoom in to see astonishing levels of detail. The images are actually multiple high resolution photos "stitched" together to form a complete picture.

For a similar project from the folks at Microsoft, check out Photosynth.

Logo-palooza

I love well-designed logos. Some of my favorites are not only clean and clear but also clever. There's an "Aha!" moment hidden in the design. Like a Gestalt effect, your mind fills in a gap or makes a connection and suddenly 1 + 1 = 3.

Here are a few of my favorites:

	NBC's famous peacock. Love the white space and the use of color.
	The Amazon logo says two things: We have everything from "A to Z" and the smiley face portrays shopping as fun.
	The Big Ten conference is actually 11 teams now. Notice how they worked in an 11 in the negative space.
	I've always liked this vintage logo from the Milwaukee Brewers. The glove is made from the letters M and B.
	The rail transport company CSX recently added the brackets and dots which paint the familiar picture of CSX rail cars.
	A beautifully designed logo for New York's effort to land the 2012 Olympic Games.
	Nice use of lettering by the Arizona Diamondbacks to form a snake's head.
	Another clever use of white space by F1 Racing.
	This may be the most famous use of white space in a company logo. Once you see the arrow, you'll always see it.
	Notice how the U's and N's in the word Sun are used to create the S.

Distributed computing

In a previous job with the American Diabetes Association, I was part of a project to build Diabetes PHD - Personal Health Decisions. It's an online health profiler that takes information about you - your height, weight, medical history, etc. - and runs a series of complex mathematical equations to determine your risk for certain health complications like stroke and heart disease. The math is very complex and requires a lot of computing power. It would take one very powerful computer hours if not days to return the results.

To increase the response time, Diabetes PHD uses the power of distributed computing. In the simplest terms, this is where large math problems are broken up into small problems, computed separately using multiple computers and then reassembled to get the answer. The math work for Diabetes PHD is sent out onto a grid of hundreds of computers working simultaneously and is able to return results in just a few minutes.

At any particular time, your computer is not working all that hard. Maybe you're just editing a spreadsheet or working on a Word document. Or you're asleep but your computer is still on. Distributed computing is a way to use some of each computer's unused processing power. The application often runs as a screensaver or continuously runs in the background while a user works.

Many other interesting projects use the power of distributed computing. The most famous may be the SETI project - the Search for ExtraTerrestrial Intelligence. You can find a full list of projects here and even find out how to sign up to donate the unused processing power of your computer.

One more from TED

Another recommendation from the TED Talks. Vilayanur Ramachandran with a brilliant talk about the inner workings of the human brain. I'm impressed anytime someone can take something as complicated as neuroscience and make it entertaining and accessible for a lay audience.

Friday fun: Time management

Here's another classic from the creative folks at The Onion.

An excerpt:

So let's plan to have a few ad hoc powwows next week to discuss the meeting situation, vis-à-vis the workplace. The prioritized goal of these meetings will be to draw up a comprehensive road map for what we should be aiming for while avoiding the stumbling blocks we've encountered in the past. The point here is to take a step back and reevaluate how we do things here, on a macro level.

Extreme Makeover - Homepage Edition

So I'm watching one of the many home design shows last night and it dawned on me how similar in some ways designing a home is to web design. Now while I don't think we'll see TV shows called "Extreme Makeover - Homepage Edition" or "Trading Webspaces" anytime soon, let me explain.

In order to be a successful design, a home needs to not only be beautiful but liveable and functional. Just like a website, there are areas of a home that are "task-related" - the kitchen, the bathroom, the closet. The design of those areas should help the "user" accomplish the necessary tasks. The kitchen and bathroom should be organized and ergonomic, the closet should be free of clutter so items are easy to find.

Other areas of a well-designed home are for entertainment or socializing with others. These areas should be designed to foster this interaction in a comfortable, friendly setting.

Lastly, the whole house should be tied together with a color scheme and design that reflects the owners. It should be an extension of "who they are."

See any similarities now? The task related areas (registration, e-commerce, etc) of your website should be simple and user-friendly. The search function should help users find content without having to wade through clutter. The social areas of your site (message boards, blogs) should be welcoming, supportive, and comfortable to your users. And the visual design of your site should be a consistent reflection of your brand.

But there's one place this analogy breaks down. You primarily build and design your home for you. You live in it. You have to feel comfortable in how it's organized, decorated, and maintained. But with a website, you're inviting all of your friends, customers and potential customers into your home. It's more important that your website is designed for them.

Online behavior policies

I would guess that most organizations have relatively clear "Internet Usage" policies that govern how computers and the Internet should be used for work-related purposes only during work hours. Often employees agree to this policy by signing a document when they are hired or by clicking an agreement when their computers turn on every morning. And of course all employees adhere to these rules. Ahem.

But many organizations struggle with what to do regarding a corporate policy for governing and guiding their employees' online behavior outside of work. Should employees be allowed to have their own blogs? What if they talk about work on their blogs? What about MySpace pages?

Edleman PR isn't afraid to tackle the issue and has one of the best policies I've seen. It's thoughtful and thorough, and it educates and advises rather than simply prohibiting certain actions.

Obviously organizations are going to have different comfort levels regarding how their employees represent themselves and the organization online. But thinking through the issues and clearly communicating with employees is the key to an effective policy.

Is pop culture dead?

A woman I work with was telling me the other day that she grew up in Idaho - near the Snake River. As a person who grew up in the 70s and 80s, I immediately thought of Evel Knieval and his attempted jump of the Snake River Canyon. I think it is an event that anyone who grew up in that era would remember. Sadly, Mr. Knievel passed away last week.

But this got me thinking. Do kids today have similar common pop-culture experiences? Or are they spread so thin across TV channels, radio, iPods, Wiis, and websites that they all are experiencing life differently? What will they "collectively remember" 20 years from now?

It used to be that, when our entertainment options were more limited, people all over the world were watching and worshipping the same cultural icons - Charlie Chaplin, Humphrey Bogart, Marilyn Monroe. Then television and radio gave us more choices and we started to go our separate ways.

Today, with more entertainment choices than ever before, are any of us watching and experiencing the same thing? We all want more options and more choices regarding how to spend our leisure time. So we've obvisously gained freedom and choice in this technological age. But part of me wonders if we've lost something too.

NORAD Santa

Here's a great story from the official Google blog about NORAD Santa. Well done, Colonel Shoup!

My kids will be watching.