As a freelance strategist with the chance to get inside corporate cultures and tinker with the best techniques for aligning behavior and processes with the expectations of customers, I’m always working to improve my tools for taking the pulse of an organization. In my most recent post, I suggested that MadLibs work well. Another research tool I like to use is one I call Get Rhythm.
Get Rhythm can be used as a facilitated workshop exercise or as a survey question inside organizations, and it’s pretty simple. Take six songs that represent a range of points of view, styles or meaning, and ask participants (employees, executives) to choose the one that is most like their company and explain their selection. Here’s the songs I often like to use (but there are many more out there that can work great):
• Queen: We Are The Champions
• Michael Jackson: Thriller
• Take Me Out To The Ball Game (as heard at baseball games)
• Johnny Cash: Folsom Prison Blues
• Somewhere Over The Rainbow (from Wizard of Oz)
• The Beatles: Helter Skelter
Obviously, there is no one right answer to this exercise. In fact, the song selection hardly matters. Every song, even one like Folsom Prison Blues, has different associations for different people. The power is in the explanation and the clarity you can get about a culture based on participants’ descriptions. And it’s fun! So, what song best fits your organization? -Scott
As a freelance strategist with expertise in qualitative research and facilitation, I often get asked to help companies learn more about themselves through dialogue with their employees and customers. One of my specialties, especially in workshop settings, is giving executives or customers the chance to have some fun while I pump them for relevant insights. This often includes art projects and the like, which always gets a rise out of the CFO in the room. “You want me to make a freakin’ collage!?” they say (before going on to thoroughly enjoy themselves).
One technique that’s ALWAYS fun and often leads to deep insight, whether in a workshop or survey setting, is the “MadLib” exercise. We all know MadLibs from childhood, right!? Maybe some of us still buy them occasionally for stocking stuffers or for the youngsters in our life. Well, have you considered using them for your business too? You should.
Here’s one MadLib style survey question I designed for an agency seeking to explore the depths of its identity as part of a rebranding process. Simple instructions were given to the staff: Put words in our customers’ mouths. For this exercise, imagine you’re a prospective client, and you’ve just visited Acme Agency (name changed) to see what they’re all about.
Boss,
I just met with Acme Agency today. What a _____ bunch of people: they’re _____, _____, _____, and they really seemed to __________. The work they showed was _____ and _____ kind of reminds me of _____. It’s clear that Acme is serious about _____ and that they value _____ and _____. What isn’t so clear is how they manage to __________. Their _____ seemed really strong, but when I asked about their _____, they said that _____. Anyway, it was a _____ visit. Before I left, they insisted that I _____. I was totally _____.
As I’m sure you can imagine, the answers were quite revealing. I encourage you to try one the next time you conduct an appropriate research project. -Scott
Over the past week, I’ve been blazing through the pages of Dogfish Head founder Sam Calagione’s book, Brewing Up a Business. One part memoir, one part brand-building how-to, the book has been a refreshing change of pace. Through stories of his childhood and the early days of the brewery, Calagione shares a great many lessons that business owners of all stripes can learn from. One story in particular has stuck with me, as a parent, strategist, and storyteller:
My father worked long hours and wasn’t home until late evening many weeknights but on the weekends his children were his priority. Whether we were waiting in line for a ski lift at a mountain in Vermont or standing in the crowded grandstand of the demolition derby at the county fair, he would always ask us the same question, “What do these people need that they don’t have right now?” We would look out at the crowd and consider the best answer. The people in line at the ski mountain might need lip balm, the people sitting in the dusty grandstand might need a cup of lemonade.
Now, there are a great many things that I find compelling about this parent/child interaction. Honestly, I want to reach into the pages and thank Sam’s dad personally. On one level, it’s an example of what we, as account planners, researchers, and designers try to do every day. Look at any given person, group or place/time and identify an unmet (and perhaps unperceived) need. It’s in this space that great products and stories are created.
But on another level, I find this simple exercise to have revolutionary potential. Imagine if we taught our kids to think this way in their everyday lives! Instead of thinking about what YOU “need”, son, let’s examine our surroundings and think about what everybody else needs. You think you need a sno-cone or a new toy, but what do you think the other 20,000 people here need THE MOST. Among other things, this simple exercise could unlock the creative potential in our kids. It could create the next generation of entrepreneurs. It could mean that Haiti and Sudan and the homeless don’t get ignored. And it would most importantly get our kids thinking about the POSSIBILITIES around them. And who knows, perhaps it could put us planners and researchers out of work because our talents wouldn’t be quite so unique.
I, for one, put this question to my six-year-old today. And his answer doesn’t really matter. -Scott
Back when we lived in small villages with rich oral traditions and long cultural memories it was relatively easy for the story—and meaning—of a house, horse or hero to persist and develop generationally. It should come as no surprise, then, that our jetsetting, transmedia’d, mobile, modern lives have kind of interrupted those patterns (and…yeah, we don’t ride horses so often anymore). It’s hard to pass down a long local legend about a subdivision neighborhood that’s only ten years old, or for a product that will be thrown out by month’s end. This doesn’t mean that we don’t have stories and resources for conveying these stories, it means that there has been a shift regarding what the objects are and the ways in which the stories could be told. Perhaps we’re too busy playing around on our smartphones to stop and listen to as many long, rambling stories as we used …or maybe we just need to find a way to add smartphones (and the internet) into the equation?
coming to a tweet near you?
Indeed, it shouldn’t come as much of a surprise that we are coming up with new methods of storytelling and collective histories that are …well…. transmedia’d, mobile and modern. We are, after all, fundamentally social beings with an inquisitive streak that predates opposable thumbs. What are we doing now that we possess not only opposable thumbs but touchscreen mobile devices? The same thing we’ve been doing all along: interacting with our world through our social structures and the technological means by which such undertakings can be facilitated. Or, to make it sound less intimidating: we do stuff in our world; utilizing people and things as needed.
What’s interesting to me is to see the latest iterations of the “utilizing people and things as needed” part. This is because the social web is allowing an unprecedented confluence of people, things and worlds—stories, about real things, unfolding in real time, across a digital ecosystem that permits the democratic, horizontal and interactive production of content and correspondence. Instead of relying upon DJs and evening news producers for determining what we hear and how, we have things like Last.fm that bring us closer to a network-based musical listening experience and Youtube playlists, enabling users to tell a certain story by preparing a particular sequence of videos for others to view (and comment upon/respond to, accordingly).
This development—the streamlined horizontal addition of one’s own narrative or storytelling touches to things and ideas—is now being carried over to the analog world and it has important implications for the relationship between someone and the brands and people with whom they interact. While there are many facets of this (which I will surely continue to explore in subsequent posts), I wanted to take a moment to make an initial look at one in particular: the “Internet of Things”.
You can think of the Internet of Things as the inclusion of real-world objects to the internet, by virtue of physical sensors, QR codes and RFID tags. I’ll not talk too long on the basics of it and will instead steer you to ReadWriteWeb’s excellent (and persistent) coverage of the emergence of the Internet of Things. Allow me to summarize, as simply as possible, why this is an awesome development for brand strategy: imagine.the.storytelling.potential.
As brand strategists and marketers we always talk about fostering a close relationship between people and the brands they love—this adds a whole new dimension (namely, the 3rd dimension) to such efforts and smart brands will start playing in this space to find out just how it might be utilized by their users. While I envision there being a certain time and place for proprietary Internet of Things uses (see my previous gushing about Icebreaker’s “baacode” as a quasi-Internet-of-Things program), my sense is that much of this will (hopefully) follow the adage that “information wants to be free” and barriers will come down in favor of a ubiquitous and usable interface that crosses brand lines and product categories. A cool new contender: Itizen.
Describing itself as “a place to tell, share & follow the life stories of interesting things,” I think it has a lot of potential. It’s simple: you put one of Itizen’s TRACKit tags (available in stick-on or sew-on, depending upon the nature of the object) on whatever you want, then you register the code on the website and share its story. What it is, why it’s meaningful, where it’s been, and so on. Cool. Fascinating. Powerful.
I first heard about this kind of idea from the founder of Re-Shirt and love how it does more than just share things or even stories—it shares meaning. An opportunity for self-expression, cultivating connections between people on a very deep level: the little bits of life that are interesting and beautiful—(some of) the things that make life worth living. It’s an amazing step back to where we began: passing down stories of the valuable things in our lives, just with a new twist: a digital invitation to put your voice into the story as well.
What are your thoughts? Are people going to get burned out on all of this “sociality”? Do I have the wrong read on the “information wants to be free” thing? What are some of the neatest applications of the Internet of Things that you’ve come across or seen on the horizon? Let me know!
- Caleb
PS – for a great thought experiment regarding products and “sociality” as a factor of the Internet of Things, look here.
What does sustainable design mean to you? That is the question posed by this evening’s AIGA SHIFT event here in Portland. Simple enough, right!? If you think so, then you should probably be presenting in my place!
Sustainability is often discussed by virtue of the United Nations’ Brundtland Commission (1987) definition of sustainable development: “Sustainable Development is development that meets the needs of the present without compromising the ability of future generations to meet their own needs.” While many alternative meanings have been suggested, I think that the Brundtland definition is a fine place to start, especially since it dovetails nicely with sustainable design in addition to sustainable development.
But I can’t think about sustainability without also pondering John Elkington’s triple bottom line of People, Planet and Profit, because I have not seen a better reflection of the complexities associated with sustainability. While the potential for profit often motivates initial product or service design, anything falling short of the above two definitions of sustainability is simply, um, falling short. But how do you know, when you set out to create something, that it will deserve the badge of “sustainability”!? Well, among other things, I think you need some damn thoughtful planning.
Sustainable design should be Considered, Intentional, Rigorous, and Engaged (with the world around us).
So, thanks to AIGA’s prompting, I offer up the following model which can be applied in the initial product/service concepting stages to see just how well your idea stacks up on the sustainability scales. Based on the Story Plotter Framework, originally conceived by the fine folks at On Your Feet and sometimes presented by Gary Hirsch (of OYF) and yours truly, I’ve simply taken the grid, turned it into a gauntlet of doom, and applied it to sustainable design thinking. And I think it could work.
You take your concept or idea, and you insert it from the left in the Sustainable Design Maker 9000, and out the other end comes a screaming, bruised and perhaps totally unrecognizable version of your original idea.
Here’s what to consider at each step:
Facts: What are the facts about your current design that make it more sustainable? Perhaps it will be made from a renewable resource? Distributed via bicycle? Improving the efficiency of an existing product? Etc. Continue until you’ve listed all such facts.
Contradictions: What are the inherent contradictions in your design? Maybe it requires wasteful packaging? Maybe parts have to be sourced from exotic locales? Continue until you think you’ve explored all of the contradictions in your current concept.
Possibilities: What are the possibilities for addressing your contradictions and even going further to improve the sustainability of your idea? Could you find a local source for parts? Create a package that is reuseable? Really reach here. What if…
Anxiety: Addressing these issues, exploring the realms of possibility will most certainly lead to anxiety. If we do THAT, then we won’t be able to grow as fast or those mill workers might lose their jobs. Sustainable design comes here to die, so deal with your anxieties and figure out which are real and which are imagined, then deal with them. Don’t let them hold you back!
That’s it in a nutshell. I think it works but it’s just a start. A new way to think or at least some new things to think about. What do you think?
As a freelance strategist with expertise in qualitative research and facilitation, I often get asked to help companies learn more about themselves through dialogue with their employees and customers. One of my specialties, especially in workshop settings, is giving executives or customers the chance to have some fun while I pump them for relevant insights. This often includes art projects and the like, which always gets a rise out of the CFO in the room. “You want me to make a freakin’ collage!?” they say (before going on to thoroughly enjoy themselves).
