I blogged this before, back in 2004, but ah, technology. Actually a $5 cable is all I needed to be able to pull audio from a microcassette into my PC, and onto Odeo, so that I can blog it here.

I received this voice mail a couple of years ago. It’s obviously misdirected, perhaps because of my Museum of Foreign Groceries which used to be displayed on this site. But that’s all packaged foods, so? Hard to figure out what the other person was thinking, but it’s funny anyway. Give it a listen!

Note: I’ve redacted the phone number to protect her privacy.

• David Denby on the future of Hollywood
  Incredible article: considers history and future in terms of marketing, content, technology, distribution, advertising, lifestyle, culture, and more.

George Carlin made his reputation as a comedian with a dirty mouth. But beyond being willing to say things that others aren’t, he’s also an oblique commentator on our society (sometimes, very direct, of course), and a master of words

. This is a recent bit (2005) and it’s brilliant. He creates meaning, or at least creates the opportunity for the listener to infer meaning, but connecting almost random bits of meaningless cultural ephemera.

Listen to the audio, or read along with George below

I’m a modern man.
I’m a modern man.
I’m a modern man.
I’m a modern man.

I’m a modern man,
A man for the millennium,
Digital and smoke free.

A diversified multicultural postmodern deconstructionist,
Politically anatomically and ecologically incorrect.

I’ve been uplinked and downloaded.
I’ve been inputted and outsourced.
I know the upside of downsizing.
I know the downside of upgrading.

I’m a high tech lowlife.
A cutting edge state-of-the-art bicoastal multitasker,
And I can give you a gigabyte in a nanosecond.

I’m new wave but I’m old school,
And my inner child is outward bound.

I’m a hot wired heat seeking warm hearted cool customer,
Voice activated and biodegradable.

I interface from a database,
And my database is in cyberspace,
So I’m interactive,
I’m hyperactive,
And from time-to-time,
I’m radioactive.

Behind the eight ball,
Ahead of the curve,
Riding the wave,
Dodging a bullet,
Pushing the envelope.

I’m on point,
On task,
On message,
And off drugs.
I got no need for coke and speed,
I got no urge to binge and purge.

I’m in the moment,
On the edge,
Over the top,
But under the radar.

A high concept,
Low profile,
Medium range ballistic missionary.
A street-wise smart bomb.
A top gun bottom feeder.

I wear power ties,
I tell power lies,
I take power naps,
I run victory laps.

I’m a totally ongoing bigfoot slam dunk rainmaker with a proactive outreach.
A raging workaholic.
A working ragaholic.
Out of rehab,
And in denial.

I got a personal trainer,
A personal shopper,
A personal assistant,
And a personal agenda.

You can’t shut me up,
You can’t dumb me down.
‘Cause I’m tireless,
And I’m wireless.
I’m an alpha male on beta blockers.

I’m a non-believer and an over-achiever.
Laid back but fashion forward.

Up front,
Down home,
Low rent,
High maintenance.

Super size,
Long lasting,
High definition,
Fast acting,
Oven ready,
And built to last.

I’m a hands on,
Foot loose,
Knee jerk,
Head case.

Prematurely post traumatic,
And I have a love child who sends me hate mail.

But I’m feeling,
I’m caring,
I’m healing,
I’m sharing.
A supportive bonding nurturing primary care giver.

My output is down,
But my income is up.
I take a short position on the long bond,
And my revenue stream has its own cash flow.

I read junk mail,
I eat junk food,
I buy junk bonds,
I watch trash sports.

I’m gender specific,
Capital intensive,
User friendly,
And lactose intolerant.

I like rough sex.
I like rough sex.
I like tough love.
I use the f word in my email,
And the software on my hard drive is hard core, no soft porn.

I bought a microwave at a mini mall.
I bought a mini van in a mega store.
I eat fast food in the slow lane.

I’m toll free,
Bite sized,
Ready to wear,
And I come in all sizes.

A fully equipped,
Factory authorized,
Hospital tested,
Clinically proven,
Scientifically formulated medical miracle.

I’ve been pre-washed,
Pre-cooked,
Pre-heated,
Pre-screened,
Pre-approved,
Pre-packaged,
Post-dated,
Freeze-dried,
Double-wrapped,
Vacuum-packed,
And I have an unlimited broadband capacity.

I’m a rude dude,
But I’m the real deal.
Lean and mean.
Cocked, locked and ready to rock.
Rough tough and hard to bluff.

I take it slow.
I go with the flow.
I ride with the tide.
I got glide in my stride.

Drivin’ and movin’,
Sailin’ and spinnin’,
Jivin’ and groovin’,
Wailin’ and winnin’.

I don’t snooze,
So I don’t lose.
I keep the pedal to the metal,
And the rubber on the road.

I party hearty,
And lunch time is crunch time.

I’m hanging in,
There ain’t no doubt.
And I’m hanging tough,
Over and out.

Drawing on the participation trend at MacWorld, maybe tying into to the creative and community brand attributes of Mac.

Scribbling all over the box constitutes a casemod? Maybe that’s a stretch, but it was popular.

The company is Mophie, the concept behind these concepts is the Illuminator. People submitted ideas, voted on ’em, and the top three are actually going to get made by Mophie!

Speck was asking people (kids?) to create a new case design, although any prizes were strictly random.

• Another of the usual articles about the future of snacking – what products, flavors, brands are coming next
  Posted here for the mention of a “snackologist” who researches what people snack on, looking for trends. Few details in methods or findings here, as if the word “snack” could carry the whole story. A quick and silly read, oh, like a snack!
• “>Design-Feed – a blog aggregator
  All This ChittahChattah is included in this site, which takes many different design related blog feeds and smooshes ’em together

Seen at MacWorld: Annette, of Venus Hum, accessorizes in green. Her Griffin trio case does iPod covers in colors. Maybe, tomorrow, she’ll listen to Pink.

Turns out Venus Hum

is real. I hadn’t ever heard of ’em, but either way, the (painfully awkward) copy reads more like a persona-driven blurb than anything. Maybe it’s the ungainliness of the writing is like the amateurish crap that people put around personas, or else it’s the matter-of-fact-ness of the tone.

• Notice More, Change Less: On Your Feet’s clever holiday gift
  Was pleased to receive one of these this year. Teaching students to notice is the goal of one of the assignments in our design research class. Previously we’ve set up blogs, but we’ll try making it more general – keeping a log, in any format.
• Buzz Canuck includes us in the Power 150-ish Canadian Bloggers – Canada’s 1% Blogging Army.
  “a special 1% who create content, who lead opinion and who influence through their insight and collaboration with others” – nice to be included! What do they mean when they describe this blog as Braille-ing The Cultural landscape I wonder?
• Wine tastings become accessible (New York Times)
  Key findings from a recent ethnographic study we did for a client are aligned with the observations in this article – wine drinkers actively seeking to learn more, more, more, especially by trying wines, and to learn without encountering or becoming snobs

If you recognize this little guy, you probably saw Turn Signals

back when we put it out at GVO, at random times between 1995 to 2000.

I just acquired a missing issue and have updated the compilation/archive here (PDF link). Check it out! Last-century references to Grant McCracken, the inventor of ramen noodles, Don Norman, and gorillas…among others.

Turn Signals…in a time before blogging, we used to take interesting articles from the paper and photocopy ’em, highlight interesting parts and put them in each other’s mailboxes. Someone suggested we turn this into something for our clients, and so we (in conjunction with a graphic design firm) created the brand, name, identity and so on. We took stories from the press, but rewrote them in a pithy/wry voice.

In its earliest days, Turn Signals was sent out by fax. We used a fax-merge program on a Mac and it would sit and dial and redial for days upon end. We didn’t have the greatest database, ended up calling people at home in the middle of the night with a fax tone. It was not a good system, but there was something about the push, the paper version. We heard stories back bout it being posted in the bathroom or left on coffee tables. Or people would fax us back with a scribbled note, or a request to be added to the distribution. We probably had a stronger identity, visually and voice, than the company did, overall. I don’t think we ever fully leveraged that, though.

Eventually we went to PDF as an email attachment. It was opt-out, which I think went with the times, although maybe we’d want to take a different approach now.

Earlier this week I met with some young entrepreneurs who are trying to apply their design school education to solve a social/business/design problem. They are interested in ways to help “mom and pop” (i.e., small, independent) businesses in a specific category remain viable. They’ve done a bit of research and ideation, but were feeling stuck, so they asked me to meet them and critique what they had done so far.

The timing was interesting, because I had just writen about my Mom and Pop failure experience (ironically, thinking about this upcoming meeting the whole time). Their response to my story was to comment on the on-demand

nature of our culture that seems to be escalating; that’s fair enough, I was certainly looking for my paint right then; we’ve been trained that it’s indeed possible, and we do want that.

There’s a lot of conventional political perspective on why one should shop locally and small, and they are hoping to get beyond that, to motivate people not for moral reasons but to create real benefit. (Virginia Postrel challenges at least one of the shoulds in her comment here.)

We brainstormed for a couple of hours, building up some possible scenarios, solutions, and I think most importantly for them, the research they should do next if they really want to understand their problem in an actionable fashion.

It’s all about triangulation; trying to get enough different perspectives on the situation, to bring differences out as contrasts, and to do that you need to look at different stuff. They had been mostly talking to the types of proprietors they wanted to help, and they had a really nice segmentation that came out of that. But they hadn’t looked at why customers shopped at those smaller stores. Or why customers didn’t shop at those smaller stores. What do people like about mom-and-pops? What do they like about chains? Both in the category they are looking at, but also other ones?

The second area I recommended they focus on is a deeper understanding of success and failure in other categories of retail. Brainstorm a list of different categories where large retailers have come in, but some small businesses remain. Look at what has made them successful, or what has prevented them from being successful.

In each of those ways of pulling back from the problem, they may see some interesting strategies that can be adapted to their target, as well as develop a more nuanced take on the challenge for their target.

I look forward to seeing where they go with it and I will be sure to publish anything that goes live here.

Also: they told me about a new doc called Independent America where the filmmakers drive across the country talking to people in different small businesses. Sounds interesting.

I’ll be picking out a few images to share here later, but for now, my photos from Macworld yesterday are here.