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FreshMeat #21 from Steve Portigal

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People, put your hands together now for FreshMeat!
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There’s a party in my mind and everyone’s invited
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At the dawn of the eighties, I looked towards my imminent
ritual transition to manhood – my Bar Mitzvah. My
preparations began with the acquisition of a portable
tape recorder (used for listening and practicing the
Torah portion I would eventually chant). My friends and I
immediately put this device to use, creating fake radio
programs, with interviews, songs, commercials, and
closing credits. The post-modern media parodies of
National Lampoon and Saturday Night Live were well-
established at that point, but not to a 13-year-old. To
us, presented with a new enabling technology, pretending
to be on the radio seemed the natural thing to do.

These new technologies continue to appear. Within recent
memory, some products that put previously unachievable
professional-grade abilities in the hands of ordinary
people include video cameras, desktop publishing, teeth
whitening, home theater, hairstyling products, and home
dry-cleaning. Further, consider some of the brands that
offer “professional” as part of their promise: Hummer,
Jeep, Viking, Thermador, SubZero, Bosch, Nikon, and Smart
and Final.

In our culture there is a growing interest in trying to
be like the professionals. As consumers, we’re interested
in how business is done. The popular press reports the
amount of money that a new movie makes in its opening
weekend. Advertisements (most recently Dell) profile the
product designers, user researchers, usability testers,
and others who are behind the scenes for the products we
buy. Many of the ubiquitous reality-TV shows are simply
pulling back the veil on a previously hidden process
(MTV’s Cribs documents the homes of the famous, Take This
Job- tracks the work activities of people with unique
occupations, Airline shows the minutiae of getting
passengers boarded for an on-time departure, and Family
Plots tells all about a family-owned funeral home). The
boundaries between consumer and producer continue to
blur, a change that was massively accelerated by the
Internet. For more about this, check out The Cluetrain
Manifesto. Customers (really, fans) of companies form
communities to debate how those companies and their
products should evolve. For example, Google’s social
networking site Orkut includes two communities with over
1000 subscribers: What Should Google Do? and What Should
Orkut Do?

But beyond simply acting upon that sense of ownership by
talking about the companies, many people are taking
advantage of new enabling technology (i.e., Photoshop) to
go one step further – to create new “products.” And, with
a distribution channel like the Internet, they can also
share their creation with an enormous audience, just like
the professionals.

Fan-created fiction (or “Fanfic”) is artifact of fandom
in general, but the quantity and breadth of Internet
sources further demonstrates the extent of consumers
acting, literally, like producers. The “Lois and Clark”
Fanfic archive has over 2300 stories and is updated
regularly. There are other fanfic sites devoted to NYPD
Blue, Law and Order SVU, Felicity, anime characters such
as Sailor Moon, and video games including Max Payne and
Zork. As well as many, many Star Trek sites.

Similarly, DVD Tracks is a site that was set up to host
alternative commentary tracks for DVDs, recorded as MP3
files by ordinary viewers.

For products, specifically, one of the most popular
formats for consumer-developed concepts is the parody.
SomethingAwful.com runs a regular forum where
participants create realistic, disturbing, obscene,
bombastic and hilarious product concepts, ads, book
covers, movie posters, and more. Check out this for
fictitious recalled food products like Nestle Boogers, or
this for fake religious toys such as Biblical MadLibs and
Erotic Dreidels.

Some people might look at those pages and groan, grimace
and think “Hardy-har, I’ve seen stuff just like that on
comedy TV shows.” That’s exactly the point! Now, ordinary
folks can create parodies of real products and services
as well as commercial media. Ironically (or
frustratingly, if you can’t handle too much recursion)
this trend was beautifully pegged in a Saturday Night
Live parody ad for computer they called McIntosh Jr.
Using the tagline “The Power to Crush the Other Kids” one
young boy earns the envy of his classmates by printing
out a fake brochure for the “pubic library.” See the ad
here.

Beyond straight-up parodies, we can find people crafting
conceptual visions of the future. Look at this to see
wireless coffee delivery and payphones converted to
clean air dispensers, among other imaginings.

But what probably hits closest to home for many of us are
the proposed design evolutions of real products, created
by regular people. A beautiful iPod watch is here. You
can see 150 other iPod concepts – new form factors, new
finishes, skins, features, and more here.

These people obviously have real passion and enthusiasm
for the iPod. We also find a similar energy with an
eagerly anticipated product update, such as the Nintendo
DS. When the public has no idea what their future object
of desire will look like, fake images begin circulating
to feed that hunger. Gizmodo.com, an excellent site for
information about the latest technology products, has
been soliciting concepts for the Nintendo DS (see some
examples here) as part of their campaign to obtain an
actual pre-release image of the product. They are even
offering a bounty (get the details here) for whoever can
provide this image.

A further variation is the how-to information created by
enthusiasts who not only share the result of their
project, but also publish detailed instructions for
others who may want to duplicate their example. They are
publishing their own designs, and the means for others to
complete that same design. Want to build a lit cityscape
for your kitchen window? See how Ryan Hoagland did it
here. Mike Harrison tells you how to build a Nixie Tube
clock here. Physically modifying a PC (or “casemodding”)
has produced a entire subculture of DIY hardware
designers who no doubt are influencing manufacturers like
Alienware. See the process of building a casemod that
looks like an anime girl here, or visit www.moddin.net to
see ultra-custom designs like a toaster, an Underwood
typerwriter, a V8 engine and others that evoke futuristic
technogeek wet dreams. The turn-your-Mac-Classic-into-an-
aquarium meme became so widespread that there is an
entire collection of Mac-based aquariums here.

Product designers may have a negative knee-jerk reaction
to all this. Who do these people think they are? Up to
this point, the limited availability of glorious tools
(and training needed to use them) placed this type of
speculative conceptual activity out of the reach of the
masses. Now the technology, if not the ability, is within
reach of millions. But for designers this is really a
“the-more-the-merrier” situation. These new enabling
technologies (i.e., PhotoShop and its brethren) further
the discourse about what is possible, and what is desired
– and that discourse is an essential ingredient in the
work we do for non-fake clients.

For example, consider how user research methods such as
participatory design (also known as PD) explicitly
harness this desire. PD asks regular people to help
design future products. The designers work directly with
users to identify needs, rapidly prototype solutions, and
iterate those solutions on-the-fly. Although some may
fear that bringing non-designers into the actual pencil-
and-paper moments of design may reduce the design to a
mere sketchmonkey, PD is not consumer-led design. The
designer takes the lead, informed by what the users know
best – the problems they have today with existing
products (of a lack of product). People will offer
alternatives to ideas suggested by designers, but the
biggest value for the designer is in understanding the
needs behind that input (i.e., it’s not clear that people
are ready for an emergency fresh air dispenser as
suggested above, but we can see the connection between
that concept and existing products such as the USB-based
personal ionizers that are sold online).

When someone says, “I want a handle,” that shouldn’t be
taken literally. The need being expressed is, “I need an
easy way to carry this device into another room.” The
designer is not simply implementing a wish-list but is
actively translating and transforming. That is what they
do best: act as a magic engine that takes in needs and
spits out wants – in a way that solves the need. No one
really “needs” an iPod watch, but they may “want” one.
Some people want one badly enough to create a picture of
what it would be like!

Participatory design is a significant shift in how we
approach user research – instead of focusing on the
problem we are now working with users to develop the
solutions. Of course, in the process of creating
products, needs, wants, and solutions are often just
proxies for each other as we struggle to articulate half-
baked ideas. But half-baked ideas are artifacts of the
creative process. It’s exciting that these regular people
are already creating partially cooked concepts on their
own, without a client, without a PD session, without a
designer, or a facilitator. For the designer who seeks to
center their solutions in the world of the user, rest
assured that the users are already headed out to meet you
halfway.

If we ever wanted proof that such a thing is possible,
that everyone really is a designer, we need look no
further than these impassioned expressions of desire to
be involved with products we love.

—

A similar version of this article appears on the Core77
Industrial Design Supersite. Check it out, with pictures
and everything, here.

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FreshMeat #20 from Steve Portigal

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Anecdotal evidence indicates FreshMeat causes happiness!
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Cute ideas about putting a friendly face on a brand
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Recently, I gave a presentation about conducting user
research in other countries (in this case, Japan). I
explained the phenomenon of “kawaii” (cute) – a prevalent
design aesthetic that cuts across age and gender. Most
people will recognize “Hello Kitty” as an example of
Japanese cuteness, but in North America that’s simply a
toy-like brand for young girls. In Japan, many businesses
will use a cute image as the “face” on their organization,
in order to present themselves as friendly, inviting, and
of course, non-threatening.

But kawaii is everywhere in Japan. The police use a kawaii
character as their mascot. Stores sell dustpans, tazers,
and dish brushes that are anthropomorphized with eyes and
a mouth.

Some quick examples here and here.

Anyone designing products, brands, services, etc. for the
Japanese market needs to at least be aware of kawaii,
and so I emphasized this to my audience.

One person spoke up and reminded us of the characters that
western companies created to personify their brands,
especially in the 50s and 60s. (For a great collection
of these mascots, check out the book
Meet Mr. Product: The Art of the Advertising Character).

It was a provocative comment, because in my fervor to
describe the ubiquity of kawaii imagery in Japan I had
forgotten about something similar in our own culture. Kawaii
is a powerful style of communication (and perhaps mode of
thought) in Japan, and it manifests itself in many ways,
one of which is cute characters to personify a brand, and
of course, the Japanese are not unique in putting faces on
brands. Point taken.

Later, I began thinking of other ways that we create
inviting brands in our culture, beyond the usual
tools of designing logos, retail experiences,
environments, web sites, etc. I realized that in the
shopping mall we’ve got a new, unique form of
Americana/Canadiana/etc…the pun-brand.

Just for groans, check out these names of mall stores:

My Favorite Muffin
Once In A Blue Moose
Gymboree
Northern Boarder
The Athlete’s Foot
Foot Locker
Romancing the Stone
The Stitching Post
Between the Sheets
Humphrey Yogart
Close Encounters
The Hotdogger
Zutopia
Banana Republic
Asian Chao
Bare Escentuals
Bead It!
Bubble Gun
Corda-Roys Originals
Sox Appeal
Hawa-E!
We’re Going Nuts
Deck The Walls
Pops Corn
The Nutty Bavarian
Soul To Sole
Whole Addiction
Time Zone
Finish Line
Site for Sore Eyes

Okay, take a deep breath! Starts to get a little
painful there, doesn’t it? Notice that sometimes
it’s hard to “see” the pun; when the brand has
established itself so well (i.e., Foot Locker)
it becomes a new “thing” rather than a clever
combination of words. It also seems that the
pun-brands that have been more successful are
(relatively) subtle – I don’t ever see Humphrey
Yogart going national (estate litigation aside)
because it’s just too broad. And some pun-brands
don’t work unless you already know what they are
selling (i.e., Whole Addiction is a body-piercing
concern…get it??).

Obviously, being punny is not enough. Like
any face being put on a business, a thoughtful
approach that is executed well and considers the
audience is essential. The Foot Locker brand
consists of more than the name, and it all
works in harmony. And let’s not forget the
Foot Locker mascot, called The Striper! (see
him here)

—

A great article about kawaii can be found here and there are a ton of kawaii links here.

—

Nice piece on visual puns in advertising is here.

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FreshMeat #19 from Steve Portigal

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Finish this 72 oz. FreshMeat and it’s free!
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The necessity of luxury; the luxury of necessity?
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James Twitchell is professor of English and advertising
at the University of Florida. He also writes wonderful
books about culture, consumption, advertising and so on.
His books are very readable, very provocative and explore
these issues from a myriad of perspectives. Titles include
Adcult USA, The Twenty Ads That Shook the World, and
For Shame. His latest book, Living It Up: Our Love Affair
With Luxury has just been released in paperback (although
the subtitle is now “America’s Love Affair With Luxury”).
While he was on vacation in Vermont, I spoke with him by
telephone about his work.

—

Steve Portigal: I read in your books…you study culture
and develop theories and explain them and integrate all
this stuff, and then you talk about being a professor of
romantic literature, so I was curious when you are at a
cocktail party and you are introducing yourself to
someone, what do you say about what it is that you do?

Jim Twitchell: Well, what I’m interested in is stories.
Most of the stories that people who do what I do talk
about are stories that are under the category literature,
but since the beginning of the 20th century there’s this
new category of stories, and that’s brands. Those are
stories told about objects, manufactured objects. And
it’s clear that that category of story is really what we
know and that the other category of stories, the high art
stories, the stories about ancestry and politics and
abstract concepts, those stories are progressively less
important.

SP: Is that heretical?

JT: I think it’s self-evident! If you ask people to fill
the blank of one of the most famous lines in the 19th
century: “My heart leaps up when I behold a in
the sky” most people of the 19th century, most educated
people would have said “Oh yeah, it’s a rainbow, my heart
leaps up when I behold a rainbow in the sky.” It was a
very famous line from Wordsworth, but it was also famous
because it had overtones of Christianity and stories from
the Bible, namely that the rainbow was a promise by God
that this wouldn’t happen again. But you couldn’t do that
today. If you asked somebody how to fill the sentence in,
they couldn’t do it. But if you asked them what’s in a
Big Mac, they might very well be able to tell you, two
all-beef patties, special sauce, sesame-seed bun. So
clearly, what we know, what we share, what we’re literate
in is not – it’s self-evident – is not anthologized
stories from the past, but are instead highly repeated
stories of commercial culture. So if you want to
understand the world, you’re probably better off looking
serious at commercial stories, brands, than you are at
this other series of stories which has pretty much lost
their audience.

SP: You don’t dismiss those. In your books you make
reference to The Rake’s Progress and things like that
that are maybe not in the same category of anthologized
works but they hearken back to some of those same eras.

JT: Well, I don’t dismiss them, absolutely not. I mean,
part of me is kind of melancholy that those stories are
being squeezed aside, but melancholy or not, the fact
that has to be dealt with is that we’re living in a world
which is rapidly contracting and it’s rapidly contracting
because simple stories are moving around the world at the
speed of television. And it’s those stories that we
share. I mean, I may have more in common with someone
right now in Tokyo or Johannesburg or Montreal. I may
have much more in common with those people who are buying
and listening to the same stories that I’m buying and
listening to than I do with my next-door neighbor. So
clearly, these stories are simple and they are shallow
and they are ahistorical, but they are also incredibly
powerful.

SP: Has this approach to stories made it into your
teaching?

JT: Well, no, because really I teach two very different
subjects. I still teach English Romanticism, and I teach
a course in Advertising in American Culture, and they are
really arms-length studies. So, no. I’m interested in the
Advertising Course, of course, in explaining how
advertising essentially has become modern literature. But
in the English Romanticism course, I don’t say anything
about advertising.

SP: I know from lots of people when they have what seem
to be from the outside diverse pursuits that maybe play
out in very different arenas, like for example your two
classes or your writing, you get them to talk about it
and in their own heads it’s all very much intertwined. Is
that how it is for you?

JT: Yes. In my head they are all part of the same
subject. The subject is: who’s telling stories, who’s
listening to stories and what are the stories about?

SP: I’m curious if you have a sense of purpose in these
books. I noticed that in “For Shame” specifically, it
seemed like the book was almost in two halves, and the
first half was very descriptive of these relationships
between these cultural factors, looking back at history
and seeing how it’s evolving, very much how “Living It
Up” was structured, but towards the end there seemed to
be sort of a, I don’t know, social critic that emerged.
What’s your own sense of your mission, or your goal in
putting these kinds of things out there to the broader
public?

JT: Well, I think you’re right. The first thing is just
to explain it, to show what it is that you think is
there, and then you’re also right, the second part is to
make some observation about it: is it good, is it bad?
And I think in the material world, here probably I am in
the extreme. I am very forgiving, relative to my
colleagues of the world of getting and spending. It seems
to me to be making life better for more people, more of
the time than other supposed improvements in the
condition of being human.

When I was interested in luxury, the one thing that kept
coming back was that almost everything that we take now
as being a necessity comes into the world and is
criticized for being an unnecessary luxury.

SP: In the book you quote Voltaire, as Voltaire mocks
those that made fun of nail trimmers. It’s a great
example.

JT: Just take the simple instrument that we’re using now,
the telephone, which end of the 19th century was
criticized for taking people away from each other. It was
going to ruin community. It was also going to ruin the
lives of women who would not be doing their chores, but
who would be talking on the phone. Now, the phone really
is, thanks to the answering machine, an almost unalloyed
improvement in life. You don’t have to talk on it. It’s
very efficient, and yet, coming in as a luxury, it’s now
a necessity. Ditto almost everything from knee
replacements to the computer. Luxury consumption is a
category that you really have got to be very suspicious
of. Very often what seems to be extraneous soon becomes
an important and necessary part of our life.

SP: I liked how you had some great examples of
advertising in the book, a lot of very contemporary
stuff. I pulled one that I thought was – I pulled it a
long time before I even saw the book – but I wanted to
mention it to you. It’s an ad for Hummer, they probably
have many in this series, but this particular one shows
the Hummer on what looks like a desert floor with a big
blue sky and the copy says “Need is a very subjective
word.”

JT: And very often I use that word when I’m trying to
criticize something that you’re doing, and I say “well
you don’t need that.” Very often it’s really something
that I’d like to have but for whatever reason I don’t
have and hence criticizing you for having it.

SP: That’s interesting. That goes back to the Voltaire
thing, he described how people might have been
criticizing others, that they didn’t need to be trimming
their nails, where of course in Voltaire’s time it was
already taken for granted that you would do this. It
makes me wonder, as Hummer’s gone on this campaign and
really pushed their product out there, certainly where I
am you see them fairly frequently on the streets, and I
wonder what the driver is thinking as they drive in that
vehicle and what the rest of us are thinking as they see
them drive by.

JT: Well, I wonder that too, because I know what I’m
thinking is “what an absolute jackass you are to be
driving this ridiculous car.” I have no idea if he is
thinking to himself “Well what a jackass you are for
thinking that I’m a jackass.” But it’s a very powerful
product. It does stir up all sorts of deep feelings.

SP: I share the same reaction. Why do we think that
person’s a jackass?

JT: Well, whatever the meaning of that brand is, clearly,
it’s a story problem for us. The object itself is of
course incredibly aggressive. It’s essentially saying
“Screw you. I’m here, I’m on the road, you move over, you
move away.” I just think it’s such an aggressive object,
and then it has an advertising campaign that is
especially in your face, that I think that is clearly
what makes the reaction to it so strong. It may be also
what makes the allegiance to it so strong.

SP: There was a great article a while ago about how
Hummer owners were feeling during the days leading up to
the conflict in Iraq. I don’t have the article at hand,
but it was amazing and that it kind of talked about –

JT: Bring it on?

SP: There was a patriotism play, that sales were going up
and people that owned these vehicles felt by driving
their vehicle to the mall that they were kicking Arab
ass. Amazing power of that brand.

[In Their Hummers, Right Beside Uncle Sam, New York Times,
April 5, 2003, By DANNY HAKIM — SP]

JT: Yes, and of course it’s typical of how we now use
commercial objects and their stories as ways to
communicate with each other.

SP: Can you give another example?

JT: Well certainly in all luxury goods, where the brand
display is obviously in the face of whoever is moving
towards you. I’m thinking of Prada or Gucci or Louis
Vuitton. These are all badge goods, but the badge clearly
is saying “I’ve got it, you haven’t.” They’re
demonstration goods. Like the Hummer, they are impossible
to pass by without observing, without reading them.

SP: So a component here is that someone else doesn’t have
it. I think you actually went into this in the book in a
fair amount of detail but your example is bringing it to
life here: “I have this and you don’t.”

JT: What makes it difficult is that there’s very little
that can be generated over, because anything that you
have, I can get some of it too. That is one of the
peculiarities of modern life. If you have a Lexus, I can
go rent one. If you go to Aspen for the season, well, I
can go for a weekend. If you can fly on the Concord,
well, I can upgrade to first class. In other words,
there’s very little in the material world that you can
have that I can’t have. And that’s what makes it all in
some ways – in some strange way – a house of cards
waiting to fall down. How are you going to find something
that everybody else doesn’t have?

SP: You get into these vectors on the “latest and
greatest” or the “hottest” or the “coolest” – there’s a
certain cachet in being ahead of the curve. That same
pleasure in having something that someone else doesn’t
have that luxury supplies, the cool community has that as
well, but they are not consuming luxury to get that, they
are consuming new and undiscovered to get that “I have it
and you don’t.”

Another aspect of luxury that you talked about is this
notion of having bounty, of having more than you need.
Maybe – there’s a lot that we talk about now about
supersizing, the excess consumption at McDonald’s. Do you
think that’s McDonald’s way to offer luxury? You can
afford now more than you need, and yeah your neighbor can
afford that too…

JT: Well, actually where you really see that is not
McDonald’s, you really see that at Hardee’s. Hardee’s,
which is squeezed by Burger King and McDonald’s, is now
coming out with an absolutely overwhelming hamburger,
which very few people can actually eat all the way
through. And that I think you’re absolutely right, that
now becomes surfeit, becomes the way you separate
yourself. This is more than you can handle.

SP: What’s the public display we are making when we
consume or we attempt to consume more than we can
consume?

JT: Well that’s a great question. Some of it is just “I’m
worth it.” I’m not so sure that it’s just the public
display, very often I think a lot of that is the
solipsism of thinking that “well, whatever this is, it’s
more than I need” but it’s also a demonstration that I’m
at whatever that level is that doesn’t have to be
concerned about habits confining desire. Some of it’s
ridiculous, clearly.

SP: Habits confining desire.

JT: Well, it’s essentially not observing this as waste,
but observing this as the necessarily overflow of objects
coming my way.

SP: So, even the frame that I’m putting on it, “more than
I can possibly consume,” that’s not necessarily the right
frame of reference.

JT: Well. I don’t know what the right frame of reference
is, all I know is that when you start seeing on menus for
adults, you start seeing children’s meals that have
nothing to do with children but have to do with people
who are not comfortable with that overflow, something
intriguing is going on.

SP: The way that we assess how much and what quantity is
right for us is breaking up.

JT: Yes.

SP: Your descriptions of some of the accommodations in
Las Vegas and the square footage of some of those places
was a great example of “more than we need.”

JT: Yeah, and that’s the story. That’s part of the brand,
is that you take some ordinary space and you luxurify by
expanding it to a point where we think we’ve never seen
it before.

SP: I did some businesses travel at one point last year
where we arrived late at the hotel and they were forced
to upgrade us to a suite, whatever the next level up was.
I was excited and when I got to the room, it was fine. It
had two televisions in different spots, of which I could
only watch one at a time. The distance I had to walk to
the bathroom was astonishing. It was actually
inconvenient, and made me think what bonus did I exactly
get here for getting a “suite.”

JT: And, that’s a function of what happens whenever you
get to a truly interchangeable object, such as a hotel
room. The only way to separate a hotel room is to do
something mildly ridiculous to it. Make the bed
supersized, or in Hollywood, transform the bathroom,
because essentially a hotel room is like an airplane
seat. It doesn’t make any difference if you are sitting
in the seat of United or American Airlines or Southwest,
the seat is all the same. So however you can change the
actual thing, especially if you can make it in the
process luxurious is absolutely crucial in changing the
narrative, changing the story, making the object somehow
different. If you look at how these luxury high-end hotel
chains work you can see whatever that process was that
you went through to get to the suite, it’s an absolutely
central part of their marketing.

SP: Do you think that this is something that companies –
are they becoming more competent in how they handle this?
How is the producer side of this changing?

JT: Something like Marriott will have five or six
different subsets but essentially they are all selling
the same product, but in the path down from Ritz-Carlton
to Marriott to Courtyard by Marriott they take the same
“airplane seat” andifferently. How do
you respond to those concerns or criticisms of the
wastefulness of the efforts we’re supporting?

JT: Oh, I give in. I think it’s true.

SP: Is it an ethical dilemma for you?

JT: No, it’s not. I think it’s self-evident that it’s an
incredibly wasteful process. It has other wonderful
aspects to it, but its ahistorical nature and its
wasteful nature can’t be denied. It has other redeeming
aspects; it’s much fairer than other systems, but why
deny the fact that it’s filled with redundancy and
superfluous objects? It’s true.

SP: If one hotel bedroom is the same as the next hotel
and a lot of resource goes into differentiating those
two, when really all that we need is a room…

JT: Exactly.

SP: That’s fair enough. Are you working on your next
book?

JT: I’m working on a book on cultural branding. On how
universities and other cultural institutions, how they
use marketing techniques to separate themselves.

[Branded Nation: How Americans are Sold Religion,
Education and Art will be published by Simon &
Schuster — SP]

SP: Is there a continuum that your books are all – is
there a thread that you’re weaving with these?

JT: No, this one seems to have grown out of the previous
one. I don’t know where the shame one came from, who
knows. But the ones on advertising sort of fit together,
and the one on luxury fitted with advertising, and I
guess this one sort of fits with the luxury. Yeah, they
do sort of fit, and then there’s the other part of my
life that makes no connection at all.

SP: What’s the process you go through to determine a
topic and begin to create the content that’s going to be
the book?

JT: I don’t know. I find something that I find intriguing
or difficult and then I just try to think about what is
it about it that everybody seems to be missing. That
essentially is what I do is, I try to find something that
if my colleagues were going to be discussing it, they
would say “ooh – not very complicated, here’s how it
works.” Whenever I find that, that’s when I think “Oh
boy, maybe there’s something here for me.”

SP: What’s your relationship with Columbia Press to go
about doing that? Are they supportive of where you are
taking the next topic?

JT: Yeah, they don’t really care. I get along very well
with them. No, they don’t care.

SP: In “Living it Up” you used a great participant-
observation technique. I haven’t read all of your work,
but that seemed to be something new.

JT: Yes, it was, and I really enjoyed it. Actually going
out and looking at it rather than sitting on my can and
pontificating was a trip.

SP: Well, you did more than look at it – you thrust
yourself right into it. You used your family members as
participants and then had everyone reflect on what their
own experiences were and you described what you were
thinking and feeling when you were considering consuming
or looking at other people consuming. It’s a great
experience, I think, to do those types of things.

JT: I’ve almost got to go, to go out for dinner, but I
hope that I’ve covered some of your subjects.

SP: Yeah, it’s great. Any other comments you want to make
or any questions for me?

JT: No, I think you’ve got it!

SP: I think you’ve got it, I just ask questions!

========================================================
FreshMeat #18 from Steve Portigal

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FreshMeat. It’s free, it’s Fresh, it’s Meat. FreshMeat!
=========================================================
If you build it, they will tell you what they think
=========================================================

At the outset of the house-hunting process, one is
advised to make a list of requirements for the new home,
such as number of bedrooms, neighborhood, size of yard,
and so on. Of course, what is wonderful (and daunting)
about this step is that for a purchase as important as
a house, we may not know what we want (or don’t want)
until we see it.

The process of going to Open Houses and visualizing our
lives and our stuff in that space is enormously powerful.
We are, in effect, evaluating a prototype.

In this evaluation process we will decide whether we
want to buy and live in the specific house we are
visiting, but what else do we learn?

– confirmation of some of our earlier assumptions
("See, having a big backyard is crucial…")

– revision of earlier assumptions
("I guess if we had a shower like this I wouldn’t need
to have a separate bathtub fixture…")

– removal or reprioritization of earlier assumptions
("I don’t have to have a side entrance…")

– new requirements for the future house
("Now that I see it, I would love an outdoor barbecue
pit just like this one…")

To do this right, you’re going to talk about it. Out
loud. And that means the people involved will negotiate
these requirements over time, making them more detailed
and more robust. In fact, the conversation will continue
after the encounter with the prototype is over. I hope
you see where I’m headed with this.

Earlier this year I was asked to show consumers a new
home electronics device that was being developed. We
went to people’s homes with this…box. A big, ugly,
weird-looking box. It was the result of clever engineers
working with off-the-shelf parts to create an artifact
that could be experienced. In other words, it really
worked.
It turned out to be the best possible prototype for the
research. We explained to consumers that this was
something they’d see in the future, but it wouldn’t look
like this box. The box was so obviously a prototype that
people easily understood that and framed their comments
appropriately, offering up their needs and desires for
this future technology.

I wouldn’t say we were "testing" this product. Rather,
we used the box as a conversation starter. We got
answers to the questions we had formulated ahead of
time (i.e., importance of a proposed feature), and the
consumers we talked to gave us information in areas
we hadn’t even thought about (i.e, not only that they
wanted it installed, but how and where they would install
it). As in the house-hunting example, we confirmed some
of our earlier assumptions, revised others, removed
others, and identified new requirements.

In this situation we had the right prototype for the
type of learning we needed to do. Consider a similar
session where the box itself doesn’t do much of anything
but has a more realistic appearance. Then we might
explore what part of the home it might best fit with,
aesthetic issues, or what parts of the control panel
people would expect to touch.

We can accomplish a lot by selecting the best sort of
prototype to explore the right topics with a customer.
The conventional wisdom seems to be that prototypes are
made to best represent the current thinking about what
the product will do/look like/etc. These prototypes are
the outputs of the typical product development process,
and are not always appropriate for this type of study.
But there are cool ways to explore different options with
customers.

In the house-hunting example, it wouldn’t be at all
unreasonable to go look at a multi-million dollar
house (although in the SF Bay Area, that just means
you get a two-car garage – but seriously folks). A lot
can be learned from the "prototype" even if it isn’t a
literal example of what you might choose. In other words,
there’s no way you’re buying that house, but as an extreme
example, it can be very effective in revealing more of
those unspoken assumptions,and clarifying the requirements.
See, there’s real usefulness is being a Looky Lou!

In any product development activity there will always be
"outsider" ideas. Even though there are valid reasons
not to take them all the way to market, those concepts
can be especially effective in sparking the type of
customer dialog that we can really learn from. If people
hate it, let’s discover why, and leverage that insight
in the concepts we go forward with.
In addition to varying the "goodness" of the idea that
you prototype (as in, that’s not a "good" idea, but
let’s get people talking about it anyway), there is also
the realism (or "fidelity") in the way you prototype it.
We often use the phrases "looks-like" and "works-like"

but there’s more to it. Consider how to create layers of
"fidelity." A plain box with no styling can have a nice
color printout of a control panel right on top. Take a
photograph of a person on a plane and put a cartoon
product in their hand. There’s a lot to play with here.
If you saw the (horrible) animated film Titan A.E.,
they made fairly effective use of layers of animation
styles – cartoon faces inside stylized suits with
photorealistic backgrounds.

And consider the dimensions of "fidelity". If you are
concerned with the size of the product, you can use plain
boxes of various sizes. There’s no need to create a variety
of working, realistic designs if you are only concerned with
size (and be sure to bring along a too-small-to-engineer-
at-our-price-point box and a too-large-for-most-users box
and see what customers tell you, and why). Once, I saw an
engineer turn a bottle of orange soda into an excellent
prototype of color and finish. In the moment, it was the
best thing to get the customer to think about how, what,
and why.

If you’re interested in more, check out the work by
Stephanie Houde and Charlie Hill. You can read a brief
summary here, or see their chapter "What do Prototypes
Prototype?" in the Handbook of Human Computer
Interaction, 2nd edition, 1997.

And finally, Michael Schrage has written extensively on
how organizations can and should create a "culture of
prototyping. Check out this Fast Company article,
or his book Serious Play.

========================================================
FreshMeat #17 from Steve Portigal

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FreshMeat – the official snack of the Zeitgeist
=========================================================
Talk is cheap, and silence is golden.
=========================================================
“Accustomed to the veneer of noise, to the shibboleths of
promotion, public relations, and market research, society
is suspicious of those who value silence.”
John Lahr

First things first: a shibboleth is a word (or phrase, or
form of language) that is used by members of a group to
identify themselves as being part of that group. Fans of
The Simpsons might exclaim “D’oh,” or software engineers
may make middleware references with their sandwiches. The
choice of words indicates something beyond the meaning of
the words themselves. One may (briefly, please!) ponder
what group I am claiming membership in through my use of
shibboleth here.

At any rate, Lahr’s quote nicely encapsulates some
thoughts I have had about silence, spurred on by a pair
of experiences over the past few months. A while back I
was in my first public improv performance. We were all
amateurs, some with many years of experience, others with
a year or less (such as myself). In this performance we
started each scene with one idea (often from the
audience) and proceeded from there with some sort of
structure. What often happened was a scramble to move the
idea forward – everyone speaking at once, with too many
ideas thrown in the first few moments to ever really
solidify into a great scene. Have you ever seen 8-year
olds play soccer? The ball and both sets of kids are a
whirling cloud that moves up and down and across the
field like the Tasmanian Devil. That was us.

But then the next night I saw the Kids in the Hall – a
comedy troupe that has been performing together for a
very long time. After the scripted material had finished,
the audience was clamoring for more. In advance of the
encore, they all walked on stage and thanked us, then
improvised a few jokes before heading off stage to
prepare for the encore. All five of them managed to hold
the stage coherently. Not everyone spoke at equal length
in those few minutes, but at no point did any of them
speak on top of another. It came off as natural and easy,
but it was really quite incredible – grab four people and
try to do that some time.

Where they succeeded and we didn’t-succeed-as-well (for
there are no losers in improv) was in allowing for
silence. Each Kid in the Hall was silent for most, if not
all, of their unscripted segment. What a powerful
contribution they made by not speaking. Yet what a
strange statement to make – that a comedy performer
helped by not speaking – how can that be? We tend to
expect performance to be the explicit utterances, not the
space between them.

But, as the word shibboleth reminds us, there are layers
to communication, and there’s a lot that can happen
without verbalization – posture, gestures, breath sounds,
eye gaze, facial reactions, and more. The Kids in the
Hall were doing all those the entire time – and they were
paying attention to each other. When silent, they were
actively silent – sending and receiving information.

This behavior is crucial in ethnographic research. When
interviewing, ethnographers speak minimally (reviewing
videotapes suggest as little as 20% of the time). Yet,
the interviews are directed and controlled by the
interviewer. Nodding, eye contact, and body language all
support the respondent in providing detailed information.

More tactically, we learn to remain silent for a beat or
two after someone has answered a question. People work in
“chunks” and often there are several chunks required to
deliver a response. Simply remaining silent (and this
does take some practice) and allowing the respondent to
answer in their own time is remarkably effective.

Of course, there is often more than one researcher on
hand. If the first ethnographer remains silent, waiting
for the respondent to continue, the second ethnographer
must recognize that, and also listen silently, rather
than using the opening as their chance to interview. This
collaborative use of silence is something the Kids in the
Hall managed and my improv group did not.

We experience these same challenges in more familiar work
settings – brainstorming, meetings, etc. We work in a
society that judges us primarily by our own contributions
rather than the way we allow others to make theirs. If
the collaborative silence is not a shared value in a
group, there can be a real problem for those who default
to listening, not speaking. We’ve learned how to give
credit to those who utter the pearls, but we don’t know
how to acknowledge the value of those that choose their
moments wisely, that allow others to shine, and that
ultimately enable those pearls.

I don’t propose any solution and I won’t condescend to
suggest “gee, if we each would try a little harder to…”
Indeed, so as to not end on a preachy note, I should
point out a 2002 episode of The Simpsons (DABF05, “Jaws
Wired Shut”) in which Homer’s jaw gets wired shut. He is
physically unable to speak. He does become a better
listener, but most interesting are the positive qualities
the people in his life project upon him. Simpsons
Executive Producer Al Jean said: “When Homer gets his jaw
wired shut, it makes him into a really decent, wonderful
human being.” I don’t know if Al Jean is getting post-
modern on us, but Homer’s internal change, through his
silence, was fairly minor compared to the differences
that other people perceived. For even more on that theme,
check out “Being There” by Jerzy Kozinsky (with Peter
Sellers starring in the film version).

—

Soundbites from “Jaws Wired Shut” here.

========================================================
FreshMeat #16 from Steve Portigal

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FreshMeat? Well, thank you kindly, I’d love some!
=========================================================
All dolled up, with someplace to go.
=========================================================

American Girl Place is an astonishing retail environment
in Chicago, a destination for the many fans of the
American Girl dolls. Over 5 million of the 18-inch,
slightly cartoonish American Girl dolls have been sold by
the Pleasant Company (started by Pleasant T. Rowland in
1986, and if that isn’t proof that name equals destiny,
I don’t know what would be) who were acquired by Mattel
in 1998.

The Place itself is a three-floor department store located
just off of Michigan Avenue’s Magnificent Mile. It truly
is a destination retail setting, doing much more than
simply vending the products, it takes the whole concept
even further, with such amenities as a salon, and a cafe.

It is somewhat difficult to separate the wonders of
American Girl Place from the wonders of the American Girl
products, so I’ll describe them together.

The products are extremely well-organized, and highly
structured. The lead offering is The American Girls
Collection: a series of dolls that are each branded
is a consistent set of products (i.e., books about
their adventures and period-appropriate costumes).

For example, Addy is a courageous girl of the Civil War,
from 1864 (Addy – 1864 – A proud, courageous girl – stories
of freedom and family). Josephina is an Hispanic girl of
heart and hope, from 1824. Kit is a bright spark in the dark
depression, from 1934. There are 8 dolls in all, ranging
from 1764 to 1944. In the lower level of the store, they
are each presented in gorgeous museum-like dioramas around
the perimeter of a large room, with product pull-tags
placed directly below. The whole room reeks of heritage,
legacy, quality, and the better times of our past.

The balancing act here is how they depict parts of US
history that were difficult (or oppressive, or racist)
through the eyes of their Girl, without being revisionist
about the past. I don’t know if they succeed in that
balance. I have a gut reaction when I see a smiling doll
who had to deal with slavery, or economic challenges.
“Wait a minute – that was a terrible experience – why are
they celebrating it?” – but I do eventually realize that
there are many stories to any experience. People will
smile, care for a child, fall in love, or whatever,
regardless of the larger circumstances. Wasn’t this one of
the many lessons from The Diary of Anne Frank?

I was fascinated to see that their latest offering is
called “Girls of Many Lands.” It is possibly a response
to 9/11, in the increasing awareness within the US that
understanding the rest of the world is vitally important.
On another level, the text indicates that these girls
are finding their place in a changing world, a reference
to the uncertainty of 2002, and the uncertainty of
pre-adolescence: “As you get older, the world seems both
bigger and smaller at the same time. It’s full of
opportunities – and questions, too. How do I fit in? Who
will I become? What is life like for other girls my age?”
The dolls themselves are smaller, intended for display, not
play, and include Neela from India in 1939, and Spring Pearl
from China, in 1857.

The second major product line is American Girl Today. The
American Girls Collection (described above) times out in 1944,
and is based on specific, fixed backstories. In contrast,
American Girl Today dolls are ready for personalization. The
set of dolls is displayed in a glass case, all dressed in the
same neutral school uniform, posed as if for a class photo.
They all seem completely alike, but upon closer inspection,
one sees the variation in hair, eye, and skin color. Looking
at all these near-identical, smiling, staring dolls was pretty
darn creepy.

The dolls are available in a range of combinations of pigments
(i.e., GT21F hass light skin, curly honey-blond hair, hazel eyes,
while GT2F has medium skin, dark brown hair, and lightbrown
eyes). Rather than defining the backstory, they are creating
a neutral backdrop for the customer to build upon, further
served by identifying the doll with a model number such as
GT3F rather than a name like Kit. The tag line is “What kind of girl are you?”

There are a huge number of outfits available for the Today doll
including: cheerleader, baseball player, soccer player, skier, and baker.

In one of the few product line inconsistencies, there is a
Today doll named Lindsey. There is no obvious reason why
they’ve created a character within this product line. Oh,
and what do these dolls cost? For $135, you can purchase
Lindsey, with the Lindsey book, a scooter, a laptop and
laptop case. This is a $15 saving versus buying each item
separately.

There are also a few supplementary product lines such as
Angelina Ballerina (a mouse), and Bitty Baby.

A number of electronic gizmos (for a person, not for a doll)
are available, including a PDA, a digital video camera, and
an MP3 player. Of anything they sell, this was the least
integrated product line – they all were clearly not your
mother’s Palm, with lots of pink plastic and fun buttons
and so on, but it didn’t seem like they had a complete idea
as to what their design language was for electronic goods.

There are also books, about feelings, school, boys, and
babysitting. My personal favorite was a series of books
about Amelia, who carries around a notebook that she fills
with interesting facts and observations. She was the only
character who’s hook was that she was smart. She seemed
reminiscent of Harriet the Spy, and her products seemed to
be ignored by shoppers during my visits.

The store features a salon, where there are options between
$10 and $20 that include brushing out the doll’s tangles, a
misting, styling, and a hair accessory such as a barrette.
There are also books for sale that give styling tips for
the doll’s hair (and for your hair).

There is a cafe with a parodic Art Deco look, thick black
and white horizontal stripes run around the room, with lots
of hot pink and enormous “buttons” serving as drapery
clasps. The menu is a prix-fixe affair, offering a 3-course
lunch, and a similar tea. It’s the ultimate “ladies who
lunch” environment, for young ladies, of course. A poster
outside the store advertises the cafe, showing the empty
restaurant, with just a doll sitting at a table, alone. This
was definitely a disturbing image.

In the basement is a theater, with live performances of
the second American Girls musical, “Circle of Friends.”
Soundtrack CDs are available for purchase. The soundtrack
to the American Girls Revue includes “The American Girls
Anthem” in which the characters declare their intention
to be the very best that they can be.

Overall, a key here is how they have created multiple
customers, all experiencing a different vicarious
experience, yet all of them compatible. The dolls are
rooted in the past, suggesting an authenticity and history
akin to an original Teddy Roosevelt bear (versus a modern
day Gund or Beanie Baby.) The store plays host to young
girls with their mothers, and their grandmothers, each
taking this in from a different perspective. Grandmothers
remember their childhood, and raising their own children,
mothers can continue a legacy, and the girls are into
something tuned just for them. The extra dollop of genius
is in the next step of recursion: the child can play
mother to her doll through these products (certainly,
allowing a young girl to play at motherhood has been part
of the appeal of dolls forever, but American Girl taps
into that incredibly well, for example the Dress Like
Your Doll department with matching girl-sized and
doll-sized outfits). The result is three-and-a-half
generations of customers!

Playing this game further, near the front entrance is a
rack of souvenirs available for both girls, and their
dolls. There are girl-sized and doll-sized umbrellas as
well as caps, t-shirts, and jackets that read “American
Girl Place.” My doll went to American Girl Place and all
she got was this lousy T-shirt?

Or consider the photo studio, where shoppers can get
their own copy of American Girl magazine, with their
photo on the cover. Which begs the question – who do they
suggest the American Girl actually is? The doll? The girl?
Or, both? American girls buy American Girls. Another subtle
but powerful play with identity.

So what are some of the lessons here?
– Understand the multiple players in a purchase process,
and ideally sell to them all
– Organize and structure your products consistently
– Create products that tell stories
– Create accessories and product extensions that tell
more stories and help your customers tell stories
– If you want to create a destination retail for your
brand, don’t do a “theme park” – take the core
experience you offer further

Of course, this is nothing but a first pass. Observation,
and analysis, and all of it IMHO. There are several
obvious next steps:
– look at the actual customers to test these hypotheses
– understand other aspects of doll culture (consider
collectors as a “lead user” community, for example)
– consider American Girl Place as a metaphor, and being
to apply the lessons learned from the process to other
business situations beyond selling dolls.

As a final thought, we always find it horrifying to see a
company being effective in marketing to a target, especially
if that target is a child. I was prepared for that (ridiculous and
personally hypocritical) reaction myself, but I think it’s relevant
to look at the overwhelming positiveness of their message, and
how sincerely and consistently they present it.

Update:

Dolls as Role Models, Neither Barbie Nor Britney
By STEPHEN KINZER

Published: November 6, 2003

CHICAGO, Nov. 5 – Surrounded by exuberant girls, including her own 8-year-old, a Wisconsin resident named Jean Carter seemed positively thrilled as she paid $650, more than twice what she had planned, at American Girl Place here.

To start, she had bought two of the store’s $90 dolls, each representing a character from a different era in American history, and then novels about each doll’s character. Then came high tea, the musical theater show and finally some of the endless stream of tie-in merchandise that has made American Girl a huge marketing success as well as a cultural phenomenon.

“It’s a racket, but it’s a good racket,” Ms. Carter said. “The kids get strong historical role models and stories that teach them a lot about life. You actually feel good spending the money.”

Update:

The Baffler, #15, an article by Terri Kapsalis that offers up some of the same observations of the American Girl Place (does she read FreshMeat?) but brings in an interesting comparison to the way prospective mothers interact with the catalogs of sperm donors.

========================================================
FreshMeat #15 from Steve Portigal

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Reach out and touch some FreshMeat!
=========================================================
Freedom’s just another word for nothin’ left to lose
=========================================================
From the Internet boom came several new iterations of the structure, symbols, and meaning of work. Casual Fridays evolved into casual day every day, and that became you’re-lucky-I’m-even-wearing-pants day. Dogs in the office and unisex bathrooms became common reference points (although relatively uncommon experiences for most workers).

Perhaps one of the most over-hyped notions was the dawning of the Free Agent era – the independent professional of the future, someone who worked with others only as needed, rapidly shifting organizational "structure" in a dynamic and tantalizingly post-modern setting. Daniel Pink and Fast Company launched the movement in 1997 and the Free Agent Nation became one of those concepts (just like the paperless office and smart appliances) that we all like to imagine even though we don’t really believe they will happen.

And then the boom faded, burst, crashed, and recessed. Suddenly, large numbers of workers were figuring out what was next – many of them from the Internet industry, where the classic norms of work had been most dramatically tested. And the Free Agent path held some promise for them.

(Full disclosure – as of this writing, I’m nearing the end of my first year of self-employment, although I don’t describe myself as a Free Agent necessarily).

And so, bold experiments were launched – alliances, strategic partnerships (without being business partners), quid pro quo deals, visions for unbranded groupings, branded groupings, everything imaginable, and then some. Although if you look closer, you’ll see a bunch of folks with home offices, DSL connections, and cell phones, imagining that there’s some middle ground between this and life in cubicle-land.

Although it is tempting to identify with the romantic notion that the Free Agent movement puts forward, I really just see myself as someone who works at home, making good use out of technologies like DSL and the mobile phone. It’s been interesting to see how people react to me as a professional, since I present without many familiar corporate trappings. And it’s been a learning experience for me to realize how and when to move a little closer to that "corporate" image. For example, an answering machine is a home technology, but voice mail (which answers calls when I am on the phone) is a work technology. Eventually I realized this was essential, and switched to voice mail (although, the fact that my answering machine broke down may have had some amount of influence over this shift).

Or, consider the role of the web site. I believe my web site articulates my background and offering well (although if you disagree, please tell me!) but I also know that the level of visual refinement was somewhat less than corporate standards. Not something mission-critical, but a part of my business identity that I could obviously improve on. And so, several months ago, I set out to do just that – find someone to help evolve my web site.

Here in Silicon Valley, there are obviously fewer Internet professionals than before, but there are definitely plenty of unemployed and underemployed designers, coders, HTML jockeys, FEDs, and what-have-you. And many of these folks were now working on their own. I sought to capitalize on this, and reached out to my network for referrals. I got a wonderful list of names – people that were highly respected by those whose opinion I held in great esteem.

I sent out messages to these folks, describing myself, my business, and the scope of the work as I saw it. Surprisingly, the response was incredibly lackluster – many never responded, others took weeks to respond, others promised to follow-up with me later but never did. One person gave me an assignment of sorts to complete before I was to initiate my next contact.

It really seemed that they didn’t want my business. Of course, the job was small. But that seems awfully short-sighted. I am a free agent (note lack of capital letters) – I provide services to my customers by partnering with others who possess skills that I don’t. From my way of looking at it, it would be worth getting on my list of partners.

Now, maybe this experience was specific to the particular type of service I was looking for (I have had much better experiences in finding vendors in other categories, although the budgets were more significant than lil’ ole me). But really, who (especially in this market) can afford to turn up their nose at possible work, and who can afford to be so short-sighted?

My learning is this: there is a big difference between offering a service and being "in business." The people I dealt with probably have great design and implementation abilities, but they clearly lack the business skills required to build a relationship and close a sale. Someone might be the best translator, web designer, or pet walker, but they will need more to be a free agent – they must be able to listen well, ask questions, make commitments and follow through on them, articulate, negotiate, deliver, and a million more essential competencies.

I imagine many of the people I approached had worked very successful experiences on project teams in larger organizations, with project managers, sales staff, admin support, billing, and so on. I just don’t believe that everyone can make the shift to doing that all themselves. And that’s fine, I think our economy needs free agents, and it needs people inside corporations. But clearly, the notion of us all becoming free agents is just silly – just because you have what it takes to create breathtakingly usable and beautiful web pages doesn’t mean you can operate a business that delivers those services (and let’s not forget that many people have the business skills but would rather spend their time doing other things)

I see the next shakeout being in the Free Agent Nation – as more jobs in companies become available, those of us who aren’t cut out to be CEO, president, janitor, accountant, etc. head back to the traditional work environments. Those who remain independent will be the ones with the staying power, the interest, and the broader skills. And that will benefit everyone.

—

Epilogue: The person I found was someone whom I was already working with; since we already knew each other he had a leg-up in understanding what kind of face I wanted to put out there. We’ve had a creative partnership, and the new-and-improved web site is up. Check it out – https://portigal.com.

—

Check out Free Agent Nation at http://www.freeagentnation.com, Harriet Rubin’s book on soloing is here and Daniel Pink’s Free Agent book is here.

========================================================
FreshMeat #14 from Steve Portigal

               (__)                     
               (oo) Fresh                  
                \\/  Meat

FreshMeat – It’ll heat you up and it’ll cool you down…
=========================================================

Here’s an assemblage of books that have caught my eye.
I own most of them (at least one was a library book),
I’ve started to read most of them, and I’ve even
finished a quite a few. Some of them I’ve probably
had for a few years, even.

Note that the year listed may be inaccurate - between 
different editions, paperback, reprints, or releases in 
various countries, it was difficult to be completely 
accurate (well, it didn't seem like it would be of any 
benefit to formulate a consistent date system).

+++++++++++++++++++++

Litter Only
Alexandra Martini
2001

Neat little photo essay of public garbage receptacles
from around the world. Too tightly bound to really get
a good look at a lot of the pictures, however. The kind of
book that makes many of us think "hey, I could have done
that…"

+++++++++++++++++++++

Walker Evans: Signs
Walker Evans, Andrei Codrescu
1998

A personal fetish of mine is photographing signs,
especially old ones. This is a book of wonderful
(and old) pictures of wonderful (and even older)
signs.

+++++++++++++++++++++

Open Here: The Art of Instructional Design
Paul Mijksenaar, Piet Westendorp
1999

This is a beautiful collection of illustrations that
explain how to use products. How, where, and when to
pull, push, insert, twist, spin, shake, connect,
remove, and so on. A celebration of the ephemeral.

+++++++++++++++++++++

Understanding Comics
Scott McCloud
1994

Presented as a comic novel, an exploration of the
"user interface" of comics – how a page of framed
illustrations with captions and balloons works as
a narrative form. The author places himself as a
character in the book, explaining his theories with
plenty of examples. A very non-threatening format for
dealing with some complex stuff. Something about his
visual style is kind of annoying to me, too much
"Sunday Funnies," with the veneer of underground
comix.

+++++++++++++++++++++

Reinventing Comics
Scott McCloud
2000

Again, a comic novel format, some furthering of the
same theories, taking into account new methods of creating
and consuming comics (i.e.,the Internet).

+++++++++++++++++++++

Art & Fear
David Bayles, Ted Orland
2001

An earnest if repetitive piece of encouragement – Art is
work, allow yourself to fail, "practice, man, practice…"
and beyond.

+++++++++++++++++++++

Waiting: The True Confessions of a Waitress
Debra Ginsberg
2001

An enjoyable memoir about a woman who spends many years
as a waitress. She interrupts her narrative to offer up
interesting mini-lectures on the world of food service
the kitchen romances, the politics of tipping, etc. The
narrative was more engaging than the information, however.
I was hoping for some proto-anthropological insight, but
I didn’t find it.

+++++++++++++++++++++

Big Hair: A Journey into the Transformation of Self
Grant McCracken
1996

A very readable and provocative book that documents the
cultural bringing you along for quite the ride, provoking you with experiences and opinions regularly. I was sad when it was over.

+++++++++++++++++++++

The Tipping Point: How Little Things Can Make a Big Difference
Malcolm Gladwell
2000

Required reading. You can even just pick a chapter and
cruise through it. Seems to be written at a slightly lower
level than his New Yorker articles (some of which are
integrated into the text of this book).

+++++++++++++++++++++

Uncommon Wisdom
Fritjof Capra
1989

A big thinker documents his intellectual explorations with
other big thinkers.

+++++++++++++++++++++

Soloing: Realizing Your Life’s Ambition
Harriet Rubin
1999

More than a guide to freelancing, the attempt here is to
pave a pathway to self-discovery, illumination, and of
course, self-actualization. All while pulling down some
pretty mean coin.

+++++++++++++++++++++

Leading at the Speed of Growth: Journey from Entrepreneur
to CEO
Katherine Catlin, Jana Matthews
2001

Based on a study of 500 business leaders who made it,
looking at how to lead, and how to grow.

+++++++++++++++++++++

Work Hard & You Shall Be Rewarded: Urban Folklore from the
Paperwork Empire
Alan Dundes, Carl R. Pagter
1992

Ever see an office with a "you don’t have to be crazy to
work here (but it helps)" sign? Or a round TUIT? This book
is one in a series that assembles this widespread yet
hard-to-trace form of urban folklore.

+++++++++++++++++++++

The Experience Economy
B. Joseph Pine, James H. Gilmore, B. Joseph Pine II
1999

"Goods and services are no longer enough," and "work is a
theater & every business a stage."

+++++++++++++++++++++

Star-Spangled Canadians
Jeffrey Simpson
2000

The Canadians in the U.S. – what brought them here, what
are they doing here, and what is their sense of national
identity? The author interviewed me (a Canadian) when he did
a pass through Silicon Valley in researching this book. And
no, I’m not in it. Damn!

+++++++++++++++++++++

Tropic of Hockey: My Search for the Game in Unlikely Places
Dave Bidini
2002

The author travels around the world to play hockey,
comparing his own imperative to learn and play the game
in 1970s Toronto with what he finds in Hong Kong, Dubai,
and Transylvania.

+++++++++++++++++++++

Inventing Desire: Inside Chiat/Day: The Hottest Shop, the
Coolest Players, the Big Business of Advertising
Karen Stabiner
1993

The author spent a year inside Chiat/Day (before they
were TBWA), studying the creative process, the egos,
the innovative office environments, the ad campaigns,
and the clients. Very engaging, but a little too
positive.

+++++++++++++++++++++

Truth, Lies and Advertising: The Art of Account Planning
Jon Steel
1998

Account Planning is the process of creating advertising
that connects with consumers. As opposed to? The writing
style makes Newsweek seem like Umberto Eco.

+++++++++++++++++++++

Where the Suckers Moon: The Life and Death of an Advertising Campaign
Randall Rothenberg
1995

An incredibly revealing document of how Subaru put their
account up for review, considered several agencies, and
selected one. And then how the agency (and their client,
Subaru) screwed it up.

+++++++++++++++++++++

My Life As a 10-Year-Old Boy
Nancy Cartwright
2001

The woman who does Bart Simpson’s voice details her
career as an actor, a voice actor, and most interestingly,
as Bart. Good document of the process of making an episode.

+++++++++++++++++++++

Have Not Been the Same: The Canrock Renaissance 1985-1995
Michael Barclay, et al
2001

An extraordinarily detailed (and thick) document of the
radical in Canadian music (the bands, and the business),
in the post-Adams/Hart/BTO/Loverboy era.

+++++++++++++++++++++

PCAT: Preparation for the Pop-Culture Aptitude Test: Rad ’80s Version
John Sellers
1998

I spent the 80s watching a great deal of TV, music videos,
and listening to the radio. And I am blessed/cursed to
remember most of it (not just the recycling-friendly bits
that VH1 has chosen to exhume). This book is a detailed
and challenging review of those (and other) elements of
80s pop culture.

—

What are YOU reading?

I got this strangely targeted spam today:

For FreshMeat:
Hi Steve,

Here’s an article I wrote that I think might work well in your
newsletter.

Please let me know if you decide to use it.

Shelley

Shelley Lowery
http://www.web-source.net/cgi-bin/t.cgi?l=bl1

>>>>
New Meta Tag Driving Targeted Traffic to Websites

By Shelley Lowery

The Aesop Meta Tag is a new standard that is dramatically
changing the way we search the Internet. This new Meta
Tag not only returns highly targeted search results, but it
also provides website owners with highly targeted traffic.

The concept is simple. The Aesop Meta Tag provides website
owners with a standardized method of classifying their web
pages into one of six categories. The Search Engine matches
the search terms with appropriate web pages according to
the classification. This enables the Search Engine to return
fast and relevant results for users — while at the same time,
driving highly targeted traffic to the websites.

When classifying a website, webmasters can categorize each
page within their website rather than just one general
classification. This allows for precise targeting not only for
specific search terms, but also for each page of a website.

The new classification categories are as follows:

Sales

The “Sales” classification signifies that the purpose of a web
page is to sell a product or service. This includes any web
page that plays a role in the sales process or leads to a sales
page. This classification will provide those selling a product or
service with highly targeted traffic, as the search results will
display a sales icon. This icon will immediately let the user
know that this particular page is selling a product or service.
If they’re in the market to buy, they’ll click through.

[snipped because who wants to read the rest of the thing?]

Anyway, here’s my reply. We’ll see what happens!

Thanks for your article Shelley. You obviously have taken a good look at FreshMeat, because you’ve hit right on the core of what I’m communicating to my readers.

I’m sure they’ll get a lot of pleasure out of your article.

Thanks again,
Steve Portigal

And yeah, I’m being sarcastic. FreshMeat is so completely unrelated it’s barely even funny. Check it out.

========================================================
FreshMeat #13 from Steve Portigal

               (__)                     
               (oo) Fresh                  
                \\/  Meat

Gimme gimme gimme! Gimme FreshMeat, Gimme FreshMeat!
=========================================================

Over the last couple of years, the Safeway grocery chain
has attempted to improve their quality of service by
addressing customers by name. You see, if you use their
loyalty card, or if you pay by debit or credit card,
they retrieve the text of your name and print it on
your cash register receipt. Checkers are required to
thank you by name, which they read off the receipt,
before they hand it to you. This doesn’t work so well,
because it takes more than a few seconds for some
checkers to read some names, and that delay at the
conclusion of your service is intolerable. Add to that,
an increased likelihood of having one’s name mispronounced,
and you’ve got a customer service failure. I mean, if I
had a dime for every time they’ve called me “Mr. Portugal,”
well, I wouldn’t have to shop at Safeway!

(This customer service problem was parodied by Saturday
Night Live back in 1992. You can read a transcript of that
sketch here.)

Recognizing the long-frustrating problem of
mispronunciation of names during commencement ceremonies,
schools like Baylor and Worcester Polytechnic Institute use
the web to collect phonetic spelling info from their grads.

The need is clear, and the technology is ready. Products
like Espeech and Orator II can begin to solve this problem.
The technology that translates text to speech actually
builds a sequence of phonemes (the basic speech sounds
used in a language) that could be spoken (by a speech
synthesizer) or output as phonetics. Just add another
field to all those databases of customer names. Let the
software take the first stab at guessing how to pronounce
the name. Checkout clerks and telemarketers would be
shown a pronunciation key at the appropriate time. If
the customer offers a correction, update the field.

If the companies that consumers do business with (airlines,
grocery stores, phone companies, banks, etc.) are going to
be addressing them by name, is it really so crazy to spend
some money getting those names right? Safeway obviously has
an inkling that they could deliver better service and forge
the right relationship through judicious use of their
customers’ names, maybe they need to step up their efforts
just a notch or two, and get it right.

—

If you are interested in ideas for products and services,
check out http://www.idea-a-day.com/ (updated daily, as the name implies, or available as a daily email), or
http://www.halfbakery.com/ (looks cool, but kind of
impenetrable UI.)

Update:
Received February, 2002 from Steven A. Burd, Chairman, President, and Chief Executive Office of Safeway, in response to a faxed copy of this issue of FreshMeat.

Dear Mr. Portigal:
Thank you for suggesting that we use some of the new software that translates text into speech, in conjunction with our ongoing customer service initiatives. We appreciate your interest as a good customer whose name has been mispronounced occasionally by our clerks.
It’s an interesting idea, one we have considered before – but using voice recognition technology, the opposite of what you propose. To be honest, we haven’t pursued this since our initial research, because the applications available at the time were expensive, slow and ineffectual. While we have similar concerns about the technology you mentioned, our industrial engineers may wish to visit the two web sites cited in your newsletter.
Meanwhile, we’ll review our stores in your area to be sure any employees who are having difficulty thanking customers by name receive remedial training. If our clerks are unsure of how a name is pronounced, they are to ask the customers. Admittedly, this is a low-tech solution, but it seems to work well.
Thanks again, Mr. Portigal. We value your constructive criticism, and the friendly spirit in which it is offered.

Update:
As we automate our lives, swallowed in a bottomless maw of voice-mail, it’s hard not to heed that little voice telling us to listen

Susan Sward
Sunday, October 18, 1998

Mother used to say that by the time people die, the world around them has often changed so much that death does not seem so terrible. I thought about her comment off and on when I was growing up — partly because I wished that the world where I had played in the 1950s would remain unchanged forever.

Soon enough, I realized that wouldn’t happen. There were the darkened, tree-lined streets of Santa Monica, for example, where my sisters and I ran barefoot chasing after the neighborhood boys. The magic of that mysterious realm was lost forever when the city installed street lights and switched them on one evening. Lately, though, my mother’s observation has been haunting me — because I fear the inexorable march of the machine.

News item: Bank says it will introduce cash-dispensing machines with new software to recognize customers’ faces.

News item: Three industry giants are pioneers in using speech-recognition technology for services such as quoting stock prices over the phone, switching a caller to the right department and reporting the whereabouts of a lost package.

News item: Later this year, many callers wanting flight information from an airline will not speak to a person but to a computer that acts like one.

News item: The Mill Valley Public Library installs an electronic checkout system removing the need to deal with a library assistant when borrowing many of the facility’s books.