1. It is hard to get back into writing in a blog fashion when a: there is so much to do, read and be part of. So once again, I’ll try to blend on this blog, the thinking, interests and other forms of authorship that are taking me away from noting it down here.

2. This has to be the year where social enterprise / Good Business takes a giant step to no longer being the outsider to big-company industry but instead being embraced as part of the DNA and helping business performance for the long-term. This year’s Social Capitalist Award winners are organizations with a big vision, big ideas and big positive impact, as opposed to many industry leaders with a murky vision, small ideas and a big detrimental impact on community and the environment. So many companies are beginning to redesign themselves from the inside out, learning from these Award winners and success stories elsewhere. I’m going to pay close attention to the influencers and those they influence this year.

3. After a long hiatus in where I grew to dislike the topic of brand, I found a corner of it I am indeed passionate about brand. For me, Business Behaviour is the key to building a strong brand, in where a company figures out what it is all about, why it does what it does and the way in which it is going to do it. I find small start-ups/companies incredibly inspirational when they are very clear about who they are and what they do for their customers, and in that there is a lot a very large organization can learn from. The Flickrs, Coudal Partners, Howies and Cliff Bars of the world are poster children for behaving the way they wish to be treated and understood. They design a business in the vision of how they see the world, designing and delivering services and products to their customers in the way they wish to behave, creating very distinctive, memorable and seductive (in a good way) experiences. And luckily for us, they’re designing their businesses from scratch, to be socially responsible and good for all of us. So figuring out who you are, what you want to be and the way in which you want to conduct business, is my key interest in brand this year. Spending time in Asia working with very large companies on this topic is a good test for some of the observations I’ve made in the start-ups I watch.

Plus 1. I apologize for the predictive nature of this post - but this also has to be the year where we see some new development in the publishing industry where a convergence of media and how people consume magazines online and off. I’m an avid collector of magazines, primarily to read them and this year I’m going to rekindle the past by looking into ‘Some Kind of Media Thing’. This channels a keen interest and hopefully will be a fruitful collaboration. There’s a lot to learn from various experiments and research, including the Institute for the Future of the Book and Tyler Brule’s upcoming Monocle. The technology is all there, hopefully we’ll get to see some inviting and inspiring new uses of it.

Because I wrote this in the very useful WriteRoom this post doesn’t contain hyperlinks. I’ll add them in later.

Happy New Year.

When I started learning about brand, it always seemed I never could get enough. I learnt about brand through reading about strategic marketing, and it seemed an interesting niche topic to pay attention to. I never imagined it was in fact a Tardis-like construct where the world of brand is immense, much bigger than it looks and often difficult to define in places. But more and more I’m finding it necessary to make the distinction about what parts of the universe of brand I play in. Because not all parts are the same. Many people don’t realize this. It is extremely difficult to play a part in all the elements that make up a brand.

If you talk to an advertising person (writer, planner or art director) - their view of a brand might be skewed towards how a brand is perceived and understood by a customer.

If you talk to a graphic designer, they might be in a nearby galaxy with a solid understanding of communications and how specifically the image of a brand might be perceived.

If you were to sit with marketing or PR folk, they too would very much understand the intersection between their messaging and positioning with the customer.

So when a discussion about brand pops up these days - it invariably is about the side of brand we see, smell and experience in the market place. Through advertising, product placements, media, our own experience and others’. And I think we continue to get confused about what a brand is, whether it is evil or not and what our part in it all is.

A great example of this is Neil Boorman’s misguided message in his announcement to burn all his branded possessions. While his reason behind it primarily appears to be the cleansing of his ‘brand-addicted’ soul, it really appears to be a dumb PR stunt for a silly book. Ironically feeding the worst parts of brand he discusses.

What he does to further confuse the discussion of brand is make radically retarded gestures towards a reason for the 200bn pounds of consumer debt the UK holds, or that brands are really just a badge of identity. And so I think his most agreeable point and most worthy message is lost being made at the very end of his article. The cost of consumption is huge and brands that encourage this are manipulating us perhaps more than we like to admit. For me Apple is king of this behaviour.

Are Brands Evil?

So it made me think about Bono’s recent brand work for Product Red. And how I liked the intent behind the program, but in reality I fear it was a flawed execution of an interesting concept. I think it was brave to break the rules and mix philanthropy with consumerism, build a brand and do the cross-media thing they did to launch it. But the choice of brands I think was odd, in being somewhat uninspired and shallow brands - and I’m surprised to say that I’ve not seen one person with such a purchased product. Even here in San Francisco where I would have thought I might have seen something red in and amongst all those LiveStrong bracelets.

I think RED might have created too much of a brand for their message that appeared slick and with the associations they had, something that didn’t speak to people in the right way. The right way for ‘giving’ while consuming. Something like Keep the Change from Bank of America over here, which rounds up purchases you make and deposits the remainder in your savings account is a much better example of how to seamlessly integrate two monetary activities into one. Now imagine if you signed up to “Give the Change” by some-bank, where in one month you donated all the change from purchases to some charity? Because to buy yet another iPod ’cause it’s red is taking one step forward and two back. We don’t need to encourage more consumption in order to donate money. And creating yet another brand out of it is just feeding the virus.

Back to Boorman’s post. In the healthy amount of negative responses he gathered for his event there lies at least one major contribution to the confusion around brand and that it might be evil. Annaf56 writes that she read somewhere that we see ’something like 30,000 ads a day’ which even in the context that she puts it, of a world of over-consumption, is simply ridiculous and untrue. Think about it. You’d have to see two thousand ads an hour to make that number, assuming you’re awake and receiving them for about 14 hours during the day. I think its more like a hundred ads a day, which could conceivably be 30,000 a year. But thousands of them might be the same, including logos and so on. But even still - chucking around incorrect facts like they’re true (tho’ read somewhere) makes people think they’re informed when reporting that brands are evil and advertising sucks.

Brands are bigger than the idea itself.

Somewhere there is a simple statement about what a brand is, that I very much like. Keller, Prof. of Marketing @ Darmouth, describes a brand as a product but with added dimensions to differentiate it. So in the product or service world, the one where we consume or acquire stuff - a brand is something that is bigger than the idea itself.

LiveStrong is much like Red. A simple idea, amplified by the message, branding and associations. Nike - sells shoes and apparel, but is made bigger by the message, awareness and the universe it creates around the simple idea of a different way of making exercise stuff. This is why people can become brands, places and ideas. Because they become to be bigger than they really are. Which goes back to the pithy statement I really wish I could recall or find - where it suggests that a brand is the suggestion of a quality where there might be none.

Whereas Cradle to Cradle, a very positive and meaningful idea couldn’t grow as quickly as it needs to unless it takes some cues from the world of brand and develops an identity, message, positioning and ultimately a brand for itself. Red did this, but perhaps on RedBull. (couldn’t help myself- sorry)

So I don’t think brands are evil. What we might do with them is, whether intentionally or not. I like supporting Howies and much of what it stands for. So I subscribe to it’s brand. The perception of a kind of quality around Howies that is made not just from its product experience, but from who they are, what they believe in and how they do business. Even big brands can be okay. Perhaps if you have a personal and meaningful relationship with them over time. Like I do with some of my Apple products. So in spite of Apple causing a normal human being to own not one but three iPods, five laptops, a desktop computer and a bunch of wireless appliances (which is not all my sickness) - I forgive it because I subscribe to what Apple is (to me) and how they do their business. And typically, when I grow to dislike them for contributing to much more waste - I find their products reliable and great quality. So when their brand is weakened for me by some misbehaving, I never fall too far away because their products deliver on their promise. Something FCUK perhaps didn’t realize.

So to sum up:

- Brands are bigger than the idea itself. Good or bad.

- The World of Brand is big - not all galaxies are alike.

- Brands aren’t evil. After-all, people, places and movies can be brands. It’s what you do with them, or the actions or behaviors behind those brands that are and if we subscribe to that - that’s just as much our problem too.

I also have been working on the new Designers’ Guide to Brand Strategy - which I think should be called something else this time- but that also makes it tough to write something else about brand up here. Plenty of people have been purchasing the current one, which I greatly appreciate as it is a nice reminder to continue on with the new one.

I’ve bought two new books recently, on brand stuff, which I’ve not yet read. The first being the follow up to the poor quality The Brand Gap, which is ZAG: The #1 Strategy of high-performance brands. Not wanting to judge a book by it’s author, I will be open to the possibility that this book doesn’t need to sit on the pile of other idiotic books like The Pirate Inside, and that Zag is a useful book.

The other book, Brand Innovation Manifesto, seems interesting and I’m hopefull about it. My biggest complaint is when authors complicate the space of brand, branding and brand strategy with their own flavour of the subject, in the process getting it completely wrong - and sell books on that. An interpretation of a subject matter is one thing, but most books simply missed the original point and formed their opinion on the basis of that.

Enough ranting. More tomorrow, or the next day.

Amongst my theoretical architecture periodicals, the one I secretly most enjoy is a non-theoretical-publication: the outstanding The Architects Newspaper, complete with it’s own gossip column. I think it is important to mix in a little ‘build’ with your ‘theory’. Though it would be a mistake to consider that architecture is limited to just buildings, which is what Geoff Manaugh also suggests in his post, Architectureal Criticism. Dan Hill weighs in on the Economist’s recent piece on how London hasn’t changed that much in some respects. Jane Jacobs passes and leaves a space perhaps the size of London, or maybe even the continent she lived on, in urban-thinking. Slate considers architects building something else, their brand. Which is nothing but a toe-dipping piece compared to Perspecta’s Famous which wonders if the brand empowers or undermines the field.

Can I add in here a spotlight on an idea I thought was brilliant even though tiny in contribution, massive in its gesture. Bank of America’s “Keep the Change” service, a technical loss-leader offered in and amongst it’s “Achieve Your Goals” category, rounds up your purchases to the nearest dollar, then deposits that difference into your savings account. It could potentially be anywhere from a dollar fifty a day to five bucks, that is saved for you. On your behalf. The idea is a lovely little human gesture which though I’m a great fan of, though not a customer, not everyone is.

So KKR buys up the software arm of Flextronics, getting frog as part of it. There has been some rumors that frog will be renamed along with the other groups in KKR’s shopping basket. / Scobelizer added his 12cents to the ‘undesign’ theory that just keeps on getting resuscitated.

But nothing was more enjoyable than my visit to Arion Press which is a beautifully preserved and still working place of industrious and unmatched craftsmanship and artistry. M.I.3 I’m afraid didn’t come close to being as entertaining or long-lasting. But I did also love Pegg’s monologue innit, which was definitely the peak of the movie.

I’m off to Overlap 2006 in two weeks, to immerse myself in the thoughts, discussions and topics from some amazing people. Thanks to Niti for inviting me.

Thanks.

Fabio Femino

I like this as a sort of jigsaw puzzle game, taking different pieces and putting them in a different order, playing with different cues to convey an entirely different meaning. For those that haven’t seen the Shining, it will mean nothing but perhaps be a little amusing. For those that have - it is hilarious to think that a different voice-over, the script of the voice-over and the Peter Gabriel track could make it a mid-summer hit.

Over six or nine features like this, I plan to write up my notes that explore what a brand is. These will be in note form, because as I proceed, I may find I wish to alter original thinking or find better examples to illustrate my point.

This document suggests there are five working parts to what a brand is - the company, product, the experience/interaction, the consumer and their perception of all this. In future features, I’ll explore these relationships in a little more detail and document useful case studies that highlight this thinking. The PDFs may not make as much sense individually as they should in conjunction with others, and really should be considered a partial thought, sort of incomplete without the following PDFs to come. In this case, there are still many parts of a brand to explore before answering completely, “What is a Brand?”. There, have I covered my butt?

Overall, my notes are to help me simplify my area of focus so I can apply and communicate it clearly in many different situations. I hope they serve the same purpose to you.

Because of my interest in business behaviour, in particular how organizations can improve their performance through design thinking, there most likely will be a lot of intersection between design thinking + brand thinking here.

Do feel free to correct, discuss or ask questions. Because it is in a PDF doesn’t mean it’s final by any standard, and I’ll always appreciate any ‘helpful’ comments.

This PDF tries to illustrate the answer to, in very simple terms, “What is a Brand”. It stops short of discussing parts like brand identity: personality, values and so on. Instead, this sets the stage for further notes, questions and answers.

What is a Brand? [brand-notes.pdf: 700kb]

Design Thinking Goes Modern.
The Feb/Mar 2006 (?) issue of Dwell this month contained a little surprise. In this issue’s Conversation section was a feature of David Kelley and introduction of the concept of Design Thinking to Dwell’s Eichler-dwelling, Mies-loving, pre-fab building readers.

In the short interview with the IDEO / d. School founder, Kelley says,

“If you look at what the country’s flipped out about, especially if you talk to the businesspeople, it’s how the U.S. is going to maintain its economy. And the answer [is] that we need to get more innovative, we need to be the one coming up with new and different ideas.”

And I’m sitting flicking through a magazine which typically does little to make me think (other than like a consumer) and I find myself frowning and thinking that this isn’t that cool of a statement.

Stuck within the pages of a magazine with over 30 pages of advertising for new products, the word ‘innovation’ seems even more inextricably tied to ‘new product development’, which then bends the whole concept of design thinking as an answer to the question of “How do we come up with even more, new product ideas for people to consume?”. And then add to that the concept that its an ‘us versus them’ predicament, it doesn’t feel like ‘creativity’ isn’t a very useful long-term strategy for saving the US economy. I’d instead put my money on learning how to play well with others and designing an end to the mega-corporation for perhaps a steady future for the US. Additionally, ‘make less and fix more’ would be an equally decent thing to focus a future on.

I should mention that Kelley’s message of design thinking isn’t what I’ve twisted it to be above, but is essentially the idea, as he says it, that the design discipline could be the glue that will hold together many diverse and dispersed talents, helping companies ‘innovate’ and be creative.

But this piece in Dwell, as in other pieces last month continues to give weight, in my mind, that Innovation is a lightweight word that serves a great purpose for marketing and ‘getting in the door’ but is largely only understood in one frame of context - which is to make more stuff. Hopefully, we can broaden the discussion a little, and show examples of innovation in different circumstances and with just as creative results.

Innovation is Everywhere.
So being stuck here in the States, with minimal international exposure but for various online sources and my CPH127 daily fix, I find myself easily focused on the innovation created in big business here in the US. So it was a refreshing escape to watch a PBS program on Microcredit & the Future of Poverty, and see innovation, creativity and business thriving in the most unexpected places.

The Small Fortunes program essentially focused on the impact microcredit has had on the world through the stories of eleven micro-entrepreneurs. Institutions set up in the poorest parts of the world lend women (mostly) on average about $100, to set up their business. What was fantastic to see were two clear things that made their businesses stronger and more likely to succeed than you might initially expect:

1. Most examples shown were businesses that made products out of someone else’s waste. In one example, a woman made shopping bags out of discarded and empty cement bags.

2. The other key element, was that their business was for their children and to be able to provide for their families.

Sort of like the saying, “One man’s rubbish is another [wo]man’s treasure” these women find value in another business’s waste, helping not only to minimize the waste through recycling, but also to increase the life-cycle of some of the materials used in the original source’s business. The book, The Pirate Inside wants you to consider this brand challenging model as “insights of opportunity”, where it cites the example of Ingvar Kamprad, Founder of IKEA, who spots plucked chickens in a Chinese market and is inspired to use the disused feathers.

There’s a certain authenticity to these businesses profiled in the program I watched. From their entrepreneurial spirit, to the products made and sold and to the purpose and values of the businesses that keeps them going, which makes innovation in this context all the more appealing. For me, the concept of extremely poor, uneducated yet hardworking and adaptive women, making something useful out of waste, born out of the simple desire to simply provide for their families, is inspiring and refreshing.

Coudal Partners Hyperkit Veer Lightroom.
Talking of authenticity - I’ve been fixated by small creative groups that wear their personalities on their sleeves. Not like the all-white-wearing Karim Rashid but like a Coudal Partners outfit. And I’m not talking about the tongue-in-cheek-cool-factor type of personalities, but the authentic creative personality that is infectious and compelling. In an over crowded world of designers, now threatening to reach epidemic proportions, being different is as important to survival as it is to do good work. Coudal Partners, over the last five years have transformed themselves into cult leaders of creativity, product making and the obscure.

I’m not about to write yet-another profile of them, but feel compelled to keep them top-of-mind as the year completes and turns into a new version of itself. Other designers and creatives who easily promote their interests, ideas and concepts exist like Hyperkit in London, Veer in Canada and Lightroom in Atlanta. And through all their activities, self-promotion, marketing, design and community building, their tone, voice and message is genuinely authentic. Thus making it that much easier to find them attractive. More on this and those mentioned in the New Year.

The Address Book Desk
I have to drop this in, even if it is brief and out of place, but I found Timo Arnall’s Address Book Desk concept inspiring. As I read through his project description, of making an NFC prototype, I came to a similar conclusion he (led me to?) mentions, of the intersection of other objects and spaces like perhaps some of those found in Jane Fulton Suri’s Thoughtless Acts. Timo links to Jan Chipchase’s blog post, which asks Why do People Carry Mobile Phones? and positioned the Center of Gravity as the most likely place where you’re like to cluster and find the three most commonly carried objects by a person.

One day in the not-to-distant future, the key, money and your phone will be combined. Which will also bring about the disastrous future scenario of losing your key/phone/wallet all a little too soon for some.

Anyway - Timo’s work continues to be an interesting distraction for me, especially as he describes and displays it so simply and easily for people like me to understand.

New Beginnings More or Less.
So I refrained from making a list of 2005, or even reminiscing about the first time I got online some ten years ago, or making any predictions of 2006 - so far.

As I stepped out of the dwelling that hosted an annual Boxing Day party, the host said farewell to us, and commented on how he felt this year was special because so many people felt positive about the new year. This is true I think. As bleak as it must be for those still suffering from the displacement of past natural disasters in the East, South or U.S., or even those that still suffer bleak futures of poverty and disease, it feels that more people are interested in solving these problems, and more people have the energy to do so. So instead of ignoring or forgetting about these problems, people are making the small changes in the big systems that are contributing to making change in the world. This feels like a good thing for the beginning of 2006.

However, I fear it will be a bleak year for DRM, Advertising and Blogging. It will be bleak because it will all get worse. The noise will get out of control, the browser-wars have evolved into the Download-Wars, between proprietary systems to buy and watch/listen to your media. And advertising will try to morph itself to infect every content delivery stream possible. If not by inserting itself either through product placement, or in and around every content devliery-activity - it will simply go ahead and make its own content delivery channels, starting first with the mobile one.

So we’ll find the advertising message gets weaker, brands become meaningless and here in the U.S. we try to make and sell you even more stuff you don’t really need - but you really really want.

Two Thousand and Six Posts
The new image on the page, with a coincidental 2006 shows the state of the overload coming from online. Typically, I tend to spend a lot of time reading stuff online, in print and listening to podcasts and even people speaking. But with over a dozen magazine subscriptions, over 200 RSS subscriptions and a daily list of community websites to visit like archinect, CHP127, Design Observer, Speak Up, Typographica and so on - its becoming noisier and less clear.

This new year I plan to streamline the sources of my ‘info’ not just because every time I open up my news reader there are nearly a thousand new posts to flick through (or 2006 as illustrated above) - but because efficiency doing more with less are going to be the focus of my interests, as I start a new day job and have less time to waste. Again - I have a piece waiting to be completed and published shortly.

This wouldn’t be a monthly wrap if I didn’t mention at least one thing that alarmed me this month. I have to say it was probably visiting Macromedia’s web site and seeing the Adobe logo where the ‘M’ should have been and a “formerly macromedia” sat next to it.

I was equally alarmed to be reminded that the franchise Rocky is being resurrected by none other than Sly himself and you can keep up with the production on the film’s blog here. What’s next E.T. Returns? Read any one of the four hundred and thirty five comments on the blog to get a look into what the average Rocky fan thinks about this new production.

Two things not alarming but noteworthy, an early plug for The Good Night staring Martin Freeman, Gwyneth Paltrow, Penelope Cruz and Danny DeVito, directed by Jake Paltrow and filmed in London and New York. Positioned as a Romantic Comedy - Martin Freeman was in the office, Hitchiker’s Guide to the Galaxy and had an unfortunately bare role in Love Actually. Next year, we’ll also see him in Anthony Minghella’s new picture, Breaking and Entering which is due to open in Feb, and Confetti which is due for limited US release in May.

The other quick mention is my friend and past colleague’s new book - a How-To on the Adobe Creative Suite #2. It might not be the most exciting title ever - but its an accomplishment and so far, a very useful education for me, helping me to squeeze out every drop of value of the software. As well as learn many more things I never knew possible about applications I’ve been using for over ten years. If you’re graphic or visual designer of some sort using the Adobe suite - then check out the book, and George also continues to write on his site The Creative Toolbox.

Thank you for sending me a copy George and congratulations for making it on Amazon.com.

I’ve taken their words from their site, and if you have any interest at all please do get in touch with them, on their site here.

Japanese architects Klein Dytham have done more than create buildings, they may have stumbled across a formula that could keep conferences fresh for the next couple of years. They are calling it “Pecha Kucha”, which in Japanese means chit-chat. Basically, it’s an event where they encourage a group of creative companies/designers to come and present, but only if they abide by the two basic rules:

1. Presentations are limited to 20 slides
2. Presenters can only spend 20 seconds on each slide

The meme has spread from Tokyo to London and across to Europe. It could be the fast food equivalent and the therefore the future of conferences. In a world where A.D.D is rampant, with people wanting desperate to be in constant check of their Crackberries and laptops, “Perchu Kucha” could be the solution.

Influx is wondering if anyone is interested in working with us, to be in or put on a Branding “Pecha Kucha” event, one evening in San Francisco early in 2006? If so, please leave us a comment. (this is on Influx Insight’s site, not mine of course).

Innovation, Shminnovation.
I spent much of this month questioning, albeit mostly in my head and a little over on CHP127, the buoyancy of the term ‘innovation’ in the media and how valid this new interest in it really is. I became most concerned when Ford started advertising that innovation is their mission, and that their tagline is now “Driving American Innovation“.

The newfound interest in it from designers and business people alike is fantastic for all the discussion it promotes, but my concern is that it soon suffers the fate of Brand Strategy and become overused, abused and tossed in a ditch somewhere. IDEO, Doblin and many others have been making a living for some time, helping their clients innovate - so it is helpful when people like Kelley and Keeley weigh in to give us some perspective from time to time. So then when Beirut, a graphic designer (albeit “the” graphic designer) suggests (perhaps tongue-in-cheek) that it is the new black, and questions where is design’s place in business when its not attached to the word innovation, I get the feeling people are going to try to push for a whole new field of work. From Beirut’s post:

“So we come full circle. Don’t say design, say innovation, and when innovation doesn’t work, make sure you saved some of that design stuff, because you’re going to need it.”

Transformation = transmogrification.
In my own work I come across the desire, when teaching an organization how to adopt innovation and design as a process, to completely transform them. This is usally perpetuated by large-ish consultancies who need to pay the bills - but transformation nonetheless is part of the service of innovation consultancy too. I came across an essay by Dr. Karmen Guevara - Creating Organizations Fit for the Human Spirit, which could have been written yesterday, but in fact, after getting in touch with Guevara, I learn it was written about 10 years ago. The same points about innovation, transformation and organizational health were all there 10 years ago. Dr. Karmen Guevara generously sent me two of her old consultancy reports for the Ministry of Defense in the UK, prepared over ten years ago, which seem to be a prescient story for today.

City Dwelling
Also this month, San Francisco gained a noteworthy architecture landmark in the middle of Golden Gate Park. I stopped by briefly to look at the outside of the new de Young museum, designed by the Swiss architects Herzog & de Meuron. It was timely as I had just read Charles Moore’s essay, You have to pay for the public life, who questions the uniqueness of urban places, city centers and urban development some 20-odd years ago. It made me appreciate that San Francisco is unique and special because from so many places within the city, you can see much of the city. This, I think, helps you feel part of living in the city quicker. As opposed to somewhere like L.A. or New York where people often say it takes years to feel part of it. In this theme, I particularly enjoyed Powazek’s short piece on parking in the city.

A Small Town Called Dish.
At the same time this month, as a Texan town was renamed Dish for the same-named network, I visited Gadsden AL, to talk about naming with the Mayors office. Most wouldn’t visit a small rural city voluntarily, unless family or work took you there - but this was a snapshot of America that you usually only see fictionalized on TV these days.

Disengaged.
A conference I continuously miss, would like to attend, but don’t think I have anything to contribute to, happened: Design Engaged. Some of the most interesting and talented people working online get together, discuss, argue and seemingly document everything. So really I needn’t attend - I can spy, read and learn remotely. Andrew Otwell seems to have done an excellent job starting up a small micro-conference set in Europe over three days. I would say that Andrew Otwell is the only other symposiarch that I know of - and I look forward to the chance to a: meet up one day, and b: to seeing what he continues to do.

AJAX = Black Hole.
I can’t remember why I wrote this: Less Ajax, Less Ruby but GYM and Web 2.0 still lingers. Perhaps someone else did and I copied it. But the interest in Web 2.0 and Ajax seems to have subsided a bit, and though it still indicates a definite trend in web maturity, it reminds me of how we all used to say, IntRAnet, Macromedia Flash, or even Shockwave back in the day - until someone who wasn’t meant to says the term to you, and you realise you need to find a new one that no one else really knows. The fun of it all is that Ajax is technology alledgedly invented by microsoft back in the 90s but not until AdaptivePath thoughtfully coined it, was it easily adopted. Reminds me of the (incorrect) Black Hole story as said by Lexicon-Branding. It seems that this coming year we’ll see the beginning of major Ajax/2.0 apps taking us away from using their desktop counterparts. Email being the first.

Interruption Scientists.
But it all still wont help us from being hopelessly distracted and overworked/tasked. Interruption scientists are busily working on stuff that tells us today (NY Times - needs reg.) that the average employee spends only 11 minutes on any given project, before being interrupted. Often that eleven minutes is portioned into three minute tasks, which we’re often multi-tasking. Thats how business is getting done today.

Yahoo Travel Will Grow.
I enjoyed the concept of the Flickrization of Yahoo, as written by Erick Schonfeld, depicting the battle between Yahoo and Google and suggesting that while Google may win on advertising and catching up on daily hits, Yahoo wins on loyal customers and their content. Yahoo Travel could be the next big thing for Yahoo, as it like Flickr, invites user-generated content. I wonder what would happen if they made a Yahoo Travel app utilizing someone like GeoVector’s software?

David Vs Ozzie?
So while Yahoo battles google, it does seem that Microsoft is battling… well, themselves really. (There was a Wharton report published today on how Yahoo is ‘carefully’ staying out of Microsoft’s ‘crosshairs’ by positioning itself as a media company.) GYM - meaning Google, Yahoo and Microsoft - does exist in some form - but Microsoft really does seem to be in a world of its own. Being able to subsidize the new X Box by over a 100 dollars a piece is stunning, but it looks like it suffers from a nearly innovation-bankrupt culture, and has no interest in changing.

I do have to say though that I did find some of Natasa Milic-Frayling’s research interesting, in particular the SmartBack feature. But this does seem to be a typical Microsoft’s approach, which is to concentrate on the ‘feature’ rather than the app or platform.

Flockensteining: to hobble together three silly apps.
I find Flock to be a symptom of that. It’s a frankenstein of an approach to build a better browser by simply integrating more apps to it. Does anyone not remember the last Netscape? The bloated email, browser and whatever app? I wish someone would work on building a better email application, or better still, a layer on top of an OS to help how we deal with internet communication.

Building Vertical Outside of Hollywood & Root Kit.
I find Mark Cuban’s stealthy, yet quite public, development of a vertical studio system quite interesting. Cuban now has the ability to let people like Steven Soderbergh simultanously release a feature through a theatre, broadcast and DVD release. And all digitally. With a growing network of production, in his recent investment in the Weinstein Brother’s new outfit, Cuban could be building the new model of movie publishing - all from outside of the current system. His technical capabilities and knowledge will hopefully provide a better ownership solution than things like SONY come up with too.

PSP Art, Is Not and little alarming things.
I bought one, though not sure why, I think its an excellent device and an important one - made even more interesting by a joint art event with the RCA.

Is Not Magazine hit the streets again. And I’ve still not purchased a copy. An interesting concept - using only Underware’s typefaces.

Last but not least, as it will be a major thought for the month of December, is the performance of brands. I received a call from a very friendly and likable Anaezi Modu from ReBrand. An ex-architect who dived into early web activity, now focuses on running an annual award of rebranding by companies worldwide. And guess what, she actually gets international jurors, like from far flung places as China, Romania and Brasil. It looks interesting - even if the site is a little limiting in its exposure of the results. More to come on ReBrand.

I read in a weekly issue of Hollywood Reporter two alarming things, one that Stanley Kirk Burrely, who you might know as M.C. Hammer, is selling off his music catalogue which belongs to his bankruptcy estate. It seems Hammer is filing for chapter 7. Interested parties should contact Wixen Music Publishing. Also alarming for me is that there is a remake of The Omen in production, which will only fuel the number of bumbling idiots who make Damien Omen + 666 jokes to me.

All in all, an interesting month with plenty to think about for next month. I’ll figure out how to summarize my notes in shorter statements, and perhaps with more conclusionary thoughts.

I’ve often wondered, both in my head and with fellow colleague Mr Zahnd, how much location has to do with an individual’s chance of success in their field. Large and successful design firms typically seem to be located in principle cities like, London, New York, Paris and even San Francisco. So it seems to suggest that if the bigest and the best are in these cities, is there any chance for more provincial and isolated entrepreneurs to succeed?

(I’m obviously discounting many other fields like Biotech, the Movie industry, Farming Research, Defense work or being a London Underground Train driver- for the sake of my thought here.)

Today, with the announcement that Joyent has acquired TextDrive I was reminded of this unanswered thread in my head and happy to see that business really doesn’t care where you might be, if business needs to get done. Joyent, a firm that I can’t quite figure out what it does, is based near me in San Anselmo, buys a San Diego based European-run business, TextDrive which is a hosting company. The inimitable John Gruber works for Joyent, though lives in Philidelphia, and the very tall Dean Allen moved from Vancouver to France and started TextDrive. Phili is, granted, a very large and well-known place on the map, but I’m not sure many people outside France (Quebec and Northern Africa) can pronounce where Allen lives today.

[update: I accidently came across what appears to be TextDrive’s designer who is based in Melborne, Australia - which just adds more dimension to the ‘all-over-the-map’ thing I’m going on about here.]

So living slightly outside of San Francisco, not far enough so as anyone would really notice; like I can look out of a number of windows and see what the weather is like in the city - most days; I consider it both brave and interesting that small companies like Joyent exist, even further outside of San Francisco than I am, and buy companies many miles away from them.

I think if you’re an individual, working from home, you can live pretty much anywhere you like. Whether you’re a writer like Robert R. Cringley who writes about Silicon Valley, while living in South Carolina, or a futurist, entrepreneur, philosopher and all-round mad-project-person, like Stewart Brand living here in Sausalito. Both people seem to tap into fairly well-oiled marketing engines for themselves, or if not, invent them.

But then, in doing my research for my article, I decided to uncover where in the world a weblog, of which I am a great fan of, comes from. As it turns out InfluxInsights is published several times a day, from right here in the usually-sunny Sausalito. I don’t know how many hits Influx gets, I imagine a lot, the quality of their posts are incredibly high even though brief - and frequent, including often on the weekend.

It doesn’t come as a suprise that places on the web like Coudal.com or Speak Up start from a large city like Chicago, even though they’re small, even tiny teams of people making them happen. It often seems like a large metropolis is a major ingredient in making small ideas into very large ones, so I always enjoy hearing or learning about companies like Joyent, or people like Mr Allen, because it reminds me that it shouldn’t and doesn’t really matter where you are, particularly if your work involves the internet and being wirelessly connected to the internet - you should really live where you would most like to. This of course doesn’t really relate to the geological scientists who specialize in underwater volcanoism - where you pretty much have to go to where the action is in that case. But hey, I don’t think they read this weblog.

Mentionables:

1. Design In Flight
2. IDEO
3. Zahnd Industries
4. Joyent lives here on the web.
5. TextDrive lives here on the web.
6. Robert Cringley writes about his move here.
7. Stewart Brand explains himself here.
8. Sausalito is here in Google’s world.
9. InfluxInsights
10. Coudal
11. Speak Up
12. John Gruber writes here.
13. Dean Allen used to write here.

This will be a great look into the view of HCI over the years, from the point of view of a computer scientist, as well as his influences and interests over the years. Unfortunately, I don’t know how much “cool inside stories” from the early ‘innovation’ days of Parc we’ll get, or stuff about people like Warnock, Evans and Sutherland and their computer graphic work in Utah - but from what I’ve read and been told, it should be fascinating for many of us nonetheless. Do drop by and give him a visit.

The five areas being: Strategy, Culture (& team, Empowerment), Cooperation, Structure & Measurement and Change Management.

And I think the list is fine and adequate. Flexible enough to probably host any endeavor and with just enough useful categorization to live as guiding principles. But the list assumes that the business is healthy enough to do this in the first place.

In my work (which is loosely described as consultancy) I come across many companies who have huge aspirations and equally large ambitions. These companies vary dramatically in size, from being ten-billion dollar, several hundred thousand employees in size, to ten-million dollars in size (revenue) and to being a small three person start-up. All want to be successful, all want to grow in some way or fashion, and these days, all use the term ‘innovate’ as loosely as people used to throw about the word “brand” some few years ago.

And in each type of company, it is also the same ailment that will kill innovation even before any weakness is shown in any of the areas listed by the Danish report: lack of clear vision and brand for the organization.

At first I thought the first on the list, Strategy, covered this, but then I thought back to the ‘innovation groups’ or CEOs I’ve worked with who already had developed strategies for their new interest in innovation. This ranged from giving a team autonomy, budgets and the responsibility to do what was needed, to also providing a clear way for new products or services to be presented and put into production. But more often than not, the innovation activities were done outside of any awareness of the overall company vision.

An additional layer to this is the general “health” of the organization in both its ability to perform as well as maximize the new value created. It is all very well sitting there in your first meeting with IDEO, Doblin or whomever, and saying “I wanna innovate” but to actually be in a position to be able to do so is something else entirely. And for the big companies, it is very different how you structure this compared to when you’re a small company.

I often think of research labs, like HP Labs or the old Xerox PARC and wonder how much they benefit (or benefited) or suffer(ed) from not being closer to people who might design the end-user product, brand or service. When you see companies like Apple, Google, BMW, and P&G you wonder if they’re set up better to turn innovation into economic success. Blue Sky research is very different from the ‘act of innovation’ I know, but both activities have to accommodate a certain amount of abstract to be able to get started. It is only the healthy company that is able to take this innovation activity and build it squarely into its already successful business processes, and make something of it. And to be able to do this, the vision and brand strategy of the business have to be clear to all.

So this is all very well, again, if the “company” is trying to innovate and perhaps launch new products and services to dominate the market. But much of the time, innovation is never seen directly by the customer, or isn’t present just in the product they’ve purchased. Innovation can happen anywhere within a business cycle.

Perhaps the “company” I’m speaking of, is an insanely huge software company that suddenly finds itself in the shadow of a recent upstart who looks poised to take the market lead. Company A, this aforementioned large monopolistic software company, decides that it needs to innovate– in fact scratch that, it needs to be an innovator and dramatically increase its ability to conceive, design and release new products. So company A sets up an internal innovation group. Complete with all the above five areas covered. Including post-it notes, and obligatory copies of anything a Kelley or someone from IDEO, or MIG has written.

Company B, a recently wealthy and pretty active company, has an entirely different culture from Company A, where every individual within the organization understands, believes in and can pretty much articulate Company B’s vision and values. Each individual is empowered to innovate, by either prototyping new ideas or getting together with other likeminded individuals to research and prototype new ideas. Company B has no internal innovation group, but has structured itself to be exceptionally good at listening both to its internal individuals, as well as to its customers. Doing this through stuff like blogs, receiving suggestions and monitoring closely the usage of its products. The company is willing to test new products on customers, and adapt and amend things with its user base. Over the years, the customer base has been accepting of this and even helped to strengthen this ecology of innovation and development.

Company A was first started at a time when business was perhaps simpler. It developed a key product and then built a business around selling that product. It grew in size by being better at selling the product and better at running its business. Every development was controlled by a culture of developing “features” for the main product, or by some connection with the sales and marketing of this said product. So really, it grew by being really damn good at its business– not necessarily businesses.

Company B started only a number of years ago and its core product makes no money but the success of it allows it to make money from it, sort of indirectly. In fact it is confusing as to what business is the company really in. Is it a frog that thinks it’s a rabbit, or is it a rabbit that thinks it’s a cat? Its business strategy is very difficult to pin down, and it is almost as if there is no clear strategy, but an unprecedented ability to adapt and change according to opportunities it develops. The Change Phases suggested by John Kotter are clearly present in this scenario.

Both companies look healthy, one in fact is incredibly so if you just look at market size and cash in the bank. But I would argue that Company B will sustain success for much longer and without so much concern as Company A has. And this is primarily because Company A is, at the moment, healthier because its vision; purpose and brand are much more ingrained into its culture and way of being. They don’t “do innovation” they’re being innovative.

(This was a purely fictional story, and does not bear any actual fact based on real people, companies or organizations. Any such coincidence is just that and was fictionalized by me, the author, purely to illustrate my point. No really.)

Though this wasn’t the point (or lack of point) from the post by Christensson, and it has been said before, “innovation has to be built into the brand of the organization” - because, as it has been said elsewhere, “Companies aren’t innovative - People are”.

And my addition to the CPH127 post would be that before all that (being the five things listed) the company has to check whether it really is an organization that can support and manage innovation. Innovation isn’t just about services and products for its customers, but innovation that might provide better value in the long-term to its customers. Fixing problems internally, adapting to change, even a restless appetite for self-improvement are all characteristics that help provide an environment for innovation to thrive in.

Sick companies usually think that building a new website, or making a new product will help them out. When in fact, it’s usually just the ability to recognize that the organization is sick and is in need of a vision and brand revitalization to help fix things. Then making a decision about what type of marketing, business, brand or sales activity can take place.

It does seem that times have changed, and apparently you can no longer just sell T-shirts anymore. Today you have to sell a lifestyle, branded experience and adopt an emotion to be able to sell T-shirts successfully. Innovation is only a small part of the whole equation, and today a company has to ask its employees to innovate probably as many times as they drink a cup of coffee a day or check their email. This can only be a good thing, because organizations can cease to carry on as efficient machines making mass-produced products (in a very narrow example) and become a mix of operating efficiency and creative, committed and inspired people. In an ideal world anyway, well, unless your headquarters are nearby in 1600 Amphitheatre Parkway, Mountain View, CA perhaps.