A blog about marketing, causes and a variety of topics in the “goodsphere”

Category Archives: Randomness

Identity thoughts

Posted on May 25, 2010 in Brand Purpose, Marketing, Randomness, Uncategorized
The Thinker (1)Image via Wikipedia

Identity is a pretty complex “umbrella” concept that gets tossed around a lot. If you talk to someone in business/marketing, identity covers everything from a company name and logo, to an entire image or perceived set of values in the marketplace.

If you talk to a social scientist, they’ll use identity to describe a person’s expression of their individuality. Indeed, social psychologists will see identity as it relates to self-image. They will describe to you how people develop mental models of themselves at the individual level.

Years ago, your identity as an individual was pretty fixed. And, if you lived in a caste society…you basically had no chance to develop a new identity. In our increasingly homogenized global world today, however, identities are more fluid. People often struggle to discover their identity (identity crises happen). Some even look to the marketplace of ideas and commerce for answers. Savvy brands are able to step in and articulate lifestyles or create symbolic worlds that people identify with, filling a void.

Thoughts on what this says about our culture in 2010 aside, how can brands discover this magic identity juice? New age brand building will tell you to turn inside to discover how to build a great brand and unlock that hidden identity that everyone loves. Meditate…hole up in a forest and you’ll come back with a solution.

I’m all for reaching deep inside from time to time, but sometimes we just need to form a vision & start going–start reaching outwards instead of focusing on our navels. Having a bias for action instead of waiting for the field of dreams is a key ingredient in moving anything important forward. All too often mental mind models don’t translate into action plans that change the future.

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Refreshing the American dream

Posted on April 2, 2010 in Lifestyle, Marketing, Randomness

What do you value?

I’ve just stumbled upon an old slideshare presentation listing American core values:

Achievement & Success, Individualism, Freedom, Progress, Material Comfort, Activity, Practicality, External Conformity, Humanitarianism, Youthfulness, Fitness & Health.

Many of these values flow from our history as a country promoting life, liberty & the pursuit of happiness in the “land of plenty.”

James Truslow Adams first coined the term American Dream in his 1931 book Epic of America:  He wrote: “It is not a dream of motor cars and high wages merely, but a dream of social order in which each man and each woman shall be able to attain the fullest stature of which they are innately capable, and be recognized by others for what they are, regardless of the fortuitous circumstances of birth or position.”

When we talk about American dreams, we often forget to mention the social order part that Adams mentions…instead, we tend to focus on the part about high wages & motor cars.

The US has long been seen as the prototypical consumption led economy.  Businesses have successfully “helped us” translate life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness into consumption terms.  “Free” offers are designed to break down our barriers to purchase, our mailboxes are filled with credit card offers, and we have leaders advocating shopping to cure our ills (Pres. Bush post 9/11 speech).  Clearly, we’re living in a culture revolving around the acquisition of stuff.  We have even turned most of our holidays into “key consumption periods.”

Yes indeed, corporations, shareholders, advertisers, politicians…everyone has helped lure America (and a large part of the western world) into becoming a consumer led culture. We’re taught to buy…and then critique.  Increasingly, we’re even being taught to “take.”  Brands are encouraged to become Brand Butlers (or free service providers) or Brand entertainers, etc.

Buy.  Take.  Free.  Rate & Review…

The Sad Part

The short-term consumer mindset built by elite leaders, organizations and even us (yep, we are shareholders too) has put America in a shockingly deep debt situation.  We’ve prodded the middle class into binge consumption, yet real wages have not risen. In fact, middle class Americans have seen a $2,000 decline in median family income over the past eight years.  That’s depressing and shameful.

Average household debt in the United States is 130% of average household income, up 20% since 2005 and double what it was twenty years ago. The US household savings rate is close to zero.

We’ve taught the middle class and a couple of generations that it is totally OK to live beyond their means.

A day of reckoning is coming…

Refreshing the Dream (at least a bit)

So how can we communicate and build brands by highlighting that lesser known part of the American dream–namely the social order part?  Campaigns like Pepsi Refresh are starting to do this by helping people,  communities, etc. create, build and develop a post-consumption world.  These campaigns tap into those forgotten American values listed above (Humanitarianism, Practicality, etc.)

The Center for the New (Old) American Dream is trying to help Americans consume responsibly, protect the environment, enhance quality of life, and promote social justice.  Have a look at their website or blog for more thoughts on getting back to basics.

I’ve got some more thoughts on this, but need to quit…so, shoot a couple of comments over if you want.

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The art of procrastination

Posted on February 4, 2010 in Inspiration, Randomness

Is procrastination always evil?

We know that we should stop focusing on day to day business, so we can devote more attention to building a brand that’s relevant for future generations.

We know we should get around to planning properly for future competitive contingencies.

We know we should really fix that leak that’s been drip, drip, dripping away.

We know we should get off of social networks & build or do something that matters.

Traditionally, according to this site, procrastination has been associated with perfectionism, which is a tendency to negatively evaluate outcomes and one’s own performance, intense fear and avoidance of evaluation of one’s abilities by others, heightened social self-consciousness and anxiety.

So, though procrastination is often masked by lazy inaction…at the heart, it’s really about being afraid.

Instead of mastering the art of procrastination and being an eternal perfectionista…we should just get on with it.

Why not start today?  What’s stopping us?

Today?

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Facebook more important to the environment than solar panels? + others

Posted on August 9, 2009 in Linkage, Randomness

After being out for a bit more than a week, I thought I would post a couple of links that caught my eye as I re-opened my computer.

Conspicuous, but not Consuming:  Why Facebook is more important to the environment than solar panels:  This is a pretty optimistic article (which I missed over a month ago) touting the move to online social networking as a fundamental shift in the pattern of human behavior.  According to the article, the “new, new socially networked conspicous consumption” will replace the conspicous consumption of physical goods, putting the brakes on the purchase of unecessary big ticket items (boats, cars, etc.) to reinforce social status.   As the authors note, Conspicuous consumption is being replaced by conspicuous expression as the driver of identity.  This new paradigm emphasizes the conspicuousness of ideas, interests & opinions rather than accumulating more stuff than your neighbors…interesting stuff, read through the comments section.

“Constructive Capitalism” by Umair Haque:  Umair talks about companies that “unnovate” instead of innovate in this interesting 45 minute keynote. 

Environmentaland - Hollywood’s Newest Quirky Theme Park:  I must admit, this one caught me by surprise.  Though California is definitely a Green leader in the U.S., putting an Environmental theme park smack-dab in the middle of “glam central” was pretty unexpected…I do like the selling line for the park “nobody rides for free”.   Environmentaland is the brain child of Global Inheritance.

Social Media & CSR:  The top 10 sites for creating conversation: A good list of sites from Chris Jarvis

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Cultural Latency and the tyranny of rapid adoption?

Posted on July 3, 2009 in Randomness

Happy 4th of July weekend to all the US Americanos out there.  Today I’m going fishing…in my Google Feed Reader.

Yes, I felt like a fisherman this morning as I tried to catch some interesting info in the hundreds of blog posts and articles that had somehow piled up–over the last 24 hours.

24 hours?  What is happening?  I have a Google headache now…and I didn’t even open Tweetdeck.  I can’t keep up.  Wait, my phone is vibrating.

Sometimes we need to slow down…and slowing down a bit might even be the key to staying on top.

A new study by Jonah Berger from the University of Pennsylvania, Gaël Le Mens from Stanford University and Pompeu Fabra University in Barcelona has shown that fast cultural adoption correlates to an equally rapid falling from favor.  According to the results reported in physorg.com, the quicker a cultural item rockets to popularity, the quicker it dies. This pattern occurs because people believe that things that are adopted quickly will become fads, leading them to avoid these items, which, in turn, causes them to die out.

The authors focus on the rise & fall in popularity of baby names…they also point to the music industry where similar findings have been observed.  Artists who rise to the top of the charts quickly often fall very quickly as well, and have lower overall sales than those who rise more slowly.  The researchers then go on to explain that people who want to ensure the persistence and success of (items) should seek to popularize them at a slow but steady pace (again, see physorg.com).

Rapid adoption of almost everything is easier than ever today as communication technologies get faster and more ubiquitous.  In fact, the latency of culture is starting to near 0.

As Faris Yakob writes on his blog, people on horseback (used to be) the speed at which information traveled: The speed at which messages could traverse distances put a limit on the latency of culture, which in turn tended to mean things changed more slowly.

Email enabled messages to travel at the speed of light. This led to things moving faster, things changing faster.

But email is one to one–even if you send it to many people, no one oversees it, which puts a limit on the reduction in cultural latency–and it used to be limited to the desktop.

Now we have millions of eyes all connected to a real-time micro broadcast messaging platform via a mobile device they have with them at all times, and a social eagerness to demonstrate primacy.

Cultural latency is nearing zero, at least in the more connected parts of the world.

Which is going to have some interesting effects, because it creates much faster feedback loops–information, once delivered, is both a reported effect and a subsequent cause, which triggers more effects.

Diminished cultural latency means that the propagation of information is so fast that the spread itself becomes the defining aspect of the system: the rate-of-spread becomes as important as the information itself.

It is in this quick fire culture that the commercial meaning makers–brands and their agents–must operate. In line with the increasing cultural decay rates, the speed of advertising must increase in step–more things must be created more often, to maintain the salience of even a few years ago.

You can really see the reduction of cultural latency playing out today.  Every recent big event now seems to get caught up in this “0 cultural latency feedback loop world”(swine flu, iran, M. Jackson) where rumor becomes fact and rumor again.

And what will all this mean for brands?  What will it take to build classic products in today’s quick fire world?  Can anything really “stick” anymore?

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PIGS we can believe in?

Posted on March 2, 2009 in Germany, Randomness

In Germany, PIGS represent good luck…

A few years back, my often insightful Canadian brother in law made a brilliant observation about Germany and the German language.  He surmised that Germans tend to use the word Schwein (translation: PIG) in a tremendous amount of “off the cuff” slang.  Sometimes, of course, they use the word Sau (translation: um, Sow) instead.

Here are a few great German PIG phrases you will come across after speaking German for a while:

  • Schweine teuer:  Translation, ridiculously expensive
  • Sau lustig: Translation:  Very funny
  • Schweine reich:  Translation: Extremely rich
  • Sau viel Glueck: A ton of good luck.  To wish someone a Happy New Year, Germans traditionally hand out Marzipan PIGS.  You also find PIGS on a lot of birthday cards (believe it or not)

In English, we don’t tend to see PIGS in such a positive light.  For us, PIGS (and PIG meat–>PORK), all too often represent waste or obesity or excess.  During the last few weeks of government stimulus discussion, we have heard a lot of discussion around PORK.  Republicans don’t like (what they call) PORK passed into law by the Obama administration.  Others, like Nobel prize winner Paul Krugman, think the Obama administration has left too much good PORK on the table.

Lets hope the latest so-called PORK from Washington is good, savory PORK the economy can sink its teeth into.  After all, PIGS represent good luck in some countries (like Germany).  And, wasn’t Wilbur our favorite famous pig in Charlotte’s web?  Don’t you secretly have a soft spot in your heart for Miss PIGGY?  PETA even asks us to help “Save the PIGS” because they are “smart and friendly animals”.

In these difficult economic times, we need stimulus and action, we probably don’t need the type of negativity you find on this PORKY site.

Thanks to GOOD for the blog post inspiration tonight.

Photo Credit:  pigs_crop by johnmuk

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thisiswhyyourefat.com, crowdsourcing just for fun or with a purpose?

Posted on February 15, 2009 in Randomness

When I was back home in the US over XMAS, my niece, who just turned 8, asked my wife and I to play a “food” game in the car in order to pass the time…she didn’t have a name for the game, but she excitedly explained the rules to us like this: “Guys, whoever comes up with the grossest combination of food possible–WINS!

“OK”, I said…”how about a peanut butter sandwich with pickles, onions and chocolate, sprinkled with curry sauce”?

My first attempt at developing a gross food menu was good, but nothing like the beautifully disjointed concoctions my niece envisioned during the long car ride.  She had obviously had much more practice and was much more imaginative than her Uncle!

So when I noticed a new website called thisiswhyyourefat.com using a remarkably similar concept to the game I was playing with my niece over the holidays, I simply had to dig a bit deeper to find out more.

Launched about a week ago, thisiswhyyourefat.com quickly became a huge meme online–attracting over 1 Million visitors in just a few days.  The website asks “the crowd” to think up the nastiest, fattiest food combos imaginable & then submit them to the site.  Right now, the site consists of disgusting items like pizza topped with warm, brown gravy or juicy Sloppy Joe piled high on a soft, Krispy Kreme doughnut.

BUT WHY?

Aside from making everyone sick, what is the purpose of thisiswhyyourefat.com?  What do they want to achieve with the site?  Is this a slick anti-obesity drive by some interest group on the web?  And how do the site owners intend to keep interest up on the site?  Do they plan on adding more text or recipes any time soon?  Will they have nasty food contests, engaging millions of “foody consumers” online?  After a couple of Google searches, I failed to find details on the motives of the team behind the site…who will take the credit for starting all the buzz?

The tricky obesity topic:

With a provocative name like thisiswhyyouarefat, the site seems to playfully point out that excesses can lead to obesity.  I know I thought about going on a diet after looking at the site for a bit…& going on a diet would probably not be a bad thing for many around the world as well;  the WHO’s latest projections globally for obesity notes the following facts and trends (as of 2005):

* approximately 1.6 billion adults (age 15+) are overweight
* at least 400 million adults are obese.

The WHO further projects that by 2015, approximately 2.3 billion adults will be overweight and more than 700 million will be obese.  Once considered a problem only in high-income countries, obesity is now dramatically on the rise in low- and middle-income countries, particularly in urban settings.  In the US, for example, obesity has now become one of the leading causes of preventable death.

Obesity is getting worse around the world, but at the same time, it is pretty hard to talk about.  Most people don’t like to discuss the topic when they are battling weight problems…and, in some cases, anti-obesity language and discussion can even be considered discriminatory.  The National Association to Advance Fat Acceptance is leading the cause for obesity acceptance.  Through lobbying, the Association is working to eliminate discrimination based on body size.  They are also providing overweight people with the tools for self-empowerment through advocacy, public education, and support.  The Stop Obesity Alliance, on the other hand, wants to reverse America’s rising trend in obesity and related conditions such as diabetes, heart disease, and certain cancers.  They focus on highlighting the growing obesity issue, and they provide links to tools like the CDC’s obesity “tracker”–an interactive state by state map of the US obesity challenge.  I had a look at the tracker and was surprised to see the the big weight increase from 1985 to 2006.  I did not find a global obesity tracker, but I’m sure we would see a similar trend across most countries if one existed.

One of the causes of obesity around the globe is the proliferation of fast food.  Despite the Global economic crisis forcing more people to eat at home, fast food companies are still doing quite well.  McDonalds even reported same store sales growth of 7.0% in Jan.  So, if we continue eating at McD’s, we probably won’t see obesity reduction any time soon…

It will be interesting to see how long thisiswhyyourefat.com stays up and how long the site will be able to  continue receiving user generated submissions.  Obviously the site needs new pictures and content to keep going.  Will the group behind the site make themselves known and announce a larger purpose at some point?  Lets see…in the mean time, go have a look at the site & let me know what you think.

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Dwight Schrute is an office guy, but he’s also…

Posted on January 17, 2009 in Inspiration, Randomness

..frugal & green.

Dwight K. Schrute…the alpha-male, science fiction loving beet farmer/sales manager extraordinaire (and, don’t forget, the assistant “to the” regional manager) on the hit TV series the Office is not your ordinary, touchy-Greeny type of guy.  However, Dwight is keenly interested in beet farming and working the land.  As his blog post “Beets and me” on Schrute-Space indicates, he even enjoys getting up every morning (along with his cousin Mose) to physically taste the dirt on his farm.  As Dwight notes:  “Each day at dawn, Mose and I go to various points of the farm and taste the dirt.  Literally.  You can tell the PH and what I call the ‘loam factor’ with different parts of the tongue.  Come to Schrute farm at dawn and you will see the silhouettes of two lanky German farmers swirling dirt in their mouths as if it was a fine wine.”

Here are a couple of ways we can learn from Dwight’s Frugality & Green thinking.  The quotes & ideas below are from a blog post on Cheap, healthy, Good.

DWIGHT: “My grandfather left me a 60-acre working beet farm. I run it with my cousin Mose. We sell beets to the local stores and restaurants. It’s a nice little farm …
DWIGHT MEANS: Buy local.
Food that’s shipped from nearby tastes better, is better for you, and is easier on the environment.

DWIGHT SAYS: “Yes, I have decided to shun Andy Bernard for the next three years, which I’m looking forward to. It’s an Amish technique; it’s like slapping someone with silence. I was shunned from the age of 4 until my 6th birthday, for not saving the excess oil from a can of tuna.”
DWIGHT MEANS: Save leftovers, or suffer the terrible consequences.

Not only is Dwight Green & Frugal, but he is also into change and the future.  He is optimistic & full of self-confidence (& sometimes over-confidence).  Here are some of my favorite quotes from Dwight on facing fear and the future (also from the Cheap, healthy, good post).

DWIGHT SAYS: “I do not fear the unknown. I will meet my new challenges head-on, and I will succeed, and I will laugh in the faces of those who doubt me.”
DWIGHT MEANS: You don’t know unless you try.

DWIGHT SAYS: [to Toby's daughter] “Hello, tiny one. YOU ARE THE FUTURE!”
DWIGHT MEANS: Teach your children well.

Photo Credit goes to libraryman


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Reflections on hate during a day of Peace & Joy…

Posted on December 25, 2008 in Randomness

Roughly 10 years ago, I celebrated the festive season in war-torn Sarajevo, Bosnia-Herzegovina. For the most part, I spent the holidays inside that year…not because it was cold outside, but because I was advised to stay inside as holiday party goers in the region tend to fire their weapons into the air over the holidays (in a celebratory way).

During the early to mid 90s, the Balkan region was embroiled in brutal ethnic & religious conflict. The three warring factions in Bosnia were all of the same ethnic background. Indeed, the Serbs, Croats, and Bosniaks were South Slavs…the only real differentiating element between the groups was religion. The Serbs were Christian Orthodox, while the Croats were Catholic and Bosniaks were Muslims. So how could people that had lived together peacefully for so many years turn against each other on a dime? Hate messaging and communication from political and military leaders played a big role…

My time in the region enabled me to see (first hand) the deep scars of civil war and a conflict driven (in part) by politicians who fanned the flames of religious hate. The building I slept in, and spent a large bit of time in, was considered a bio hazard because bodies had decomposed past the point of recognition during a particularly hot summer of bloodshed. The side of the building was also riddled with bullet holes and partially destroyed.

In the case of Bosnia, it was largely the Bosniak Muslims on the receiving end of brutal and unnecessary persecution. In other parts of the world, we see just the opposite, Christians are persecuted by converts to militant Islam. In China, the govt. persecutes the Falun Gong as well as Christians and other minority religious groups.

Sadly, on this day of religious celebration, people around the world are being brutally persecuted for their religious beliefs and practices. According to the Center for the Reduction of Religious Based Conflicts, there are 19 significant religious conflicts going on around the world today. Reckless government leaders and hate groups continue to stir the pot of negativity by filling their speeches and websites with words of hatred and violence. Indeed, negative hate messaging can spread like wildfire in today’s connected world. Web 2.0 for all its amazing strengths, is rife with hate sites and negative cause related communication. As hate communities leverage YouTube (Google), Facebook and other Web 2.0 sites more and more, the leadership within these social networking giants will continue to be challenged with walking the fine line between being a conduit for dangerous hate community building and freedom of speech.

Those of us lucky enough to live in countries where we are not persecuted for our beliefs should be thankful on this day of Peace, hope and joy…below are a few sites that are dedicated to shining a light on hate mongers and unnecessary persecution around the world.

Persecution Blog
Anti-Defamation League
Religion, nationalism & terror

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Got your goat? Or maybe a camel…or a croc?

Posted on December 22, 2008 in Randomness

As mentioned in a previous post, I wanted to put up a couple of last minute gifting ideas for XMAS…as I was looking up ideas, my wife thought the “give a goat” scheme from Oxfam sounded pretty cool. So tonight I will take a look at some different animal gifting programs.

The Goats: Giving a goat to someone in the developing world provides a range of benefits. Villagers can either improve their own diets or generate income through goat sales. Giving a goat is tangible; you can almost imagine villagers smiling as they get their goats. I grew up around livestock while working (a couple) of summers on my grandfather’s farm, so, I connected to the goat idea. Interestingly, there is a good deal of controversy on the goat giving subject. I expected animal rights activists to be upset about the scheme, but the controversy goes deeper as some people question the full environmental impact of animal gifting plans. Many argue that as populations continue to swell, overgrazing will become a much bigger issue (soil erosion, etc.). There are several other points against animal giving. Debatepedia does a great job of chronicling the pros & cons so if you are interested in a deeper understanding of the topic, check out the link.

The Others + My Personal Favorite: Goats aren’t the only animals you can give…Oxfam also offers Camels. Practical Presents lists fish cages as a top gift. That’s right, fish cages…apparently they work pretty well in Bangladesh. Dogs Trust offers “Give Dogs a Cuddle”. You can give a gift of canine care by helping cover the expenses of the Dogs Trust’s carers - who are responsible for loving abandoned pooches, among other things. Dogs Trust also has a pretty nifty website providing a quick and easy way to join their Facebook group. Clarissa, the founder, has a blog. So, if the new Pres. elect does not get his wish to have a shelter dog in the White House, perhaps he can donate to Dogs Trust this year. Samaritan’s purse proposes the gift of snails…I am currently living in the French part of Switzerland and having eaten a few more snails than usual during the last few years, but still, I think I prefer giving a camel or a goat over giving a batch of snails. And, my personal animal giving favorite item of the year…a crocodile. It is my favorite item because it’s audacious and even pretty scary. OK, I admit it, I am seriously afraid of Crocs. Last year I encountered a “beware of the crocodiles” warning sign on a golf course in Mexico and it scared the crap out of me. Trust me, I did not aim for the water area when teeing off on that hole.

Thanks to James Asfa and his article in Intelligent giving for inspiring some of the animal choices above.

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