But sometimes you are dropped into a lake where the banks are too far to spot and the current is too hard to swim against.

Where the fuck is the other side?

You breathlessly tread water looking for a way out. You latch onto some passing drift wood only to have it sink under your weight. You yell at the top of your lungs, but it falls on fish ears.

Just as you're about to come to terms with a watery death, you realize that the current is taking you ashore. Panic is now relief. You end your ordeal by coughing up a Bay Watch belch of water.

This is my process. And from what I can tell, is the same for the creative people I'm surrounded by everyday.

A culture that builds bridges over big, scary lakes breeds weak swimmers. Coming out the other end of a complex task is like a Pamela Anderson revival: buoyant.

You feel awesome, right?

I found an interesting chart on Fast Retailing's (Uniqlo's parent company) website that plots sales against the total number of stores. 

Between 1992 and 1999, sales grew at a porportionate rate to the number of stores. Between 2000 and 2004, however, sales outstripped the growth in store numbers. 

It reminded me that growth doesn't always come with efficiency. Whether you're expanding a skill-set at work or opening stores in new markets. 

In the distance, I notice her patrol has taken a turn in my direction. Her gaze sharpens on me as she gets closer. I sink into my seat with the realization that I am the next person to be called out.

Neighbouring eyes turn away to avoid awkwardness. Ears stay fixed on the drama. 

"Sir, please take out your headphones! There are no headphones allowed in this room."

Apparently, the library is segmenting rooms by degrees of quiet and I was the latest disturbance to the peace. 

Sorry? 

I rip out my headphones and walk over to the entrace to investigate signage. Indeed, I have found myself in the 'Quiet Room'. No flash photography; no headphones. 

Isn't it weird that experiences are often dictated by rules instead of choices? 

A user's journey should be more like a menu. I pick work while listening to podcast and you chose the work and sleep on desk option. In a library, 'choose your own adventure' could apply to more than just books. 

How does incompetence grow to mammoth proportion without anyone stopping it?

My theory: rooms large enough for elephants. 

At birth, an elephant weighs over 260 pounds. It grows up to be the largest land mammal on Earth. 

So why, when an elephant is born in a business environment, does everybody ignore it?

The soft toot from an objectionable statement will grow louder and louder if uncontested. Everyone will see the elephant in the room. Those who believe they have enough space will keep quiet.

I'm glad to work in an environment that fears for its foundations with an elephant stomping around. We constantly discuss the meaning of what we say and try to "make a decision about everything". 

If an undeserving concept finds itself into our minds, we do our best to erradicate it. I can expect a gallery of cockeyes if I mention the word 'viral'.

(I had to write a blogpost about its value just so I could keep using it.) 

Boxing, as defined by an outsider, is the collision of two punch-hungry men in a ring with four sides.

Illogical.

As an insider, I understand boxing's logic. I even support its title as a 'science'.

(A broken nose holds me back from calling it sweet.)

Science is governed by laws and so is boxing. You'd be surprised how many there are. Don't hook with a hooker. Champions never retire once. Mexicans don't quit; Europeans can.

The most interesting law to me is 'styles make fights'. It holds that good fights come from complementary fighting styles. Think about Ali versus Foreman: a boxer on the move versus a puncher on the hunt. Ward versus Gatti: two high-frequency punchers willing to stand toe-to-toe.

Two great fighters can be in a boring match. A champion can be foiled by an awkward journey-man. Each fight is a unique pairing of styles.

I wish we ran business the same way. Imagine we picked clients based on styles and invested time in putting on a good show for fans. We'd end up with more than just case studies. We'd have classics.

In my experience, there are two types of communicators in the workplace: those who expand on ideas and those who strive to simplify them.

To an 'expander' there are always more dimensions to be added to a simple idea. A 'simplifier' always wants less.

Often, I've found myself in a ricochet between stakeholders who have opposing styles. The results in a situation like this are never good. It's so hard to neutralize the copious amounts of salt from one cook when you don't have enough water from the other.

Generally, my tactic has been to take input with just a grain.

Recently, though, I've been begun to devise ways of working harmoniously with expanders and simplifiers - ways that don't sacrifice the quality of work.

Expansion and simplification are forms of sense-making. The act of capturing many variables in a metaphor or visual is a crucial moment of learning for many people. Others learn by streaming thoughts on paper, to people and in private.

We can't co-create unless space for both forms of sense-making are encouraged.

Imagine running a meeting where a group of simplifiers sit in silence as an expander narrates their journey with a business problem. The simplifiers are tasked with documenting discrete components of the narrative on individual index cards. Once finished, randomly paired cards are handed back to the expander who begins a new dialogue, using the combination in front of them as inspiration.

The ultimate goal is to regulate the cadence of group thought so that simplification and expansion are not mistaken for 'improvements' or 'constructive feedback'. They are, rather, equally important tools for maturing how we think of something.

Since 1992, 801 journalists have been killed around the globe. To understand how high this death rate is consider that just over 1000 pugilists have died in the history of boxing.  

Can the death rate among journalists be a good measure of evil?

I’ve always found it peculiar that a journalist killed in action guarantees a news story. It’s either a great way to show how dire a situation is or, it’s a show of how hacks, as an interest group, are able to bring attention to their plight. I wonder what the ratio of news stories to deaths is among different interest groups? Celebrities are 1:1, I know that much.

But when a celebrity dies you can’t infer anything about the world (except maybe that use of sleeping pills is increasing). One civilian death is not telling. 10 civilians in one instance sounds like a massacre; 100-200 sounds like a plane crash. But, there is something special about one journalist. If a journalist dies, it signals that something went wrong in the system. I always imagine they are revealing Kim Jong Il’s darkest secrets or are about to out a corrupt politician. (Consider these two examples to be different, where Kim Jong Il is more a deity than corrupt politician.)

We assume that journalists have an immunity to death like medical personnel or Cher. They get a badge. They get security and transportation. They get a lenience un-afforded to civilians, especially in war zones. So, when one dies we are that much more convinced that evil abounds – that freedom is threatened. (A recent transplant to the United States, I’ve learnt how to judge everything by how free it is.)

In this sense, hack deaths are a meaningful lens. Definitely check out both the Committee to Protect Journalists and the Reporters Without Borders websites. The Philippines, interestingly, is the second most dangerous destination for journalists. I’m unaware of major wars in the area in the last 10 years but, I wonder why the Philippines and not, say, Iran. The variables I’ve considered:

• Amount of war in region
• Level of political corruption
• Freedom of press and people
• How dangerous the roads are
• Access to implements to which one person can kill another
• Journalist conferences that are subject to terrorism

When is a surprise trip to Honolulu the last thing you want? 

In my case, it was during an unexpected stop 7 hours into a 14 hour flight from Sydney to San Francisco. 

The airline was United and the passengers were at odds.

In the hour we spent stuck on the tarmac we received 2 announcements. The first was an apology (there was a medical emergency) and the second was an introduction to our new crew.

Mahalo.

From observation, United's protocol was apology. I was consistently told that my business was appreciated. What I missed, was the implications of the delay on my service experience. 

Was I going to make my connecting flight? Will I be reimbursed for flights I miss? How will I contact the people meeting me at the airport? 

None of my questions were answered. The only thing more barking mad than me was a dog stuck in stowage. 

I reached my breaking point when the entertainment schedule restarted. Despite its recent awards, I wasn't about to watch The Social Network again. (I can visit your site 5 times a day but I'm not prepared to do the same with your movie.)

My experience was dictated by what United didn't do instead of the other way around. If services are stories then United certainly wasn't the narrator.

I wouldn't call it bad service, though. Delayed flights and queues are realities of travelling. I'd call it absent service. 

For those more nomadic, you'll appreciate the old 'bag o' shit: a plastic bag used to carry articles of life that teeter around the line of usefulness. Articles that are not worth anything but don't belong in the trash.

I found one, and decided to see what was inside.  

A comparison of what I thought my co-workers' eye color was with the truth. 

Clay made this sick graphic inspired by some conversations we had over the weekend. Awesome. Actually, inspired by a ride he had on a train. 

@clayparkerjones and I have just finished the first draft of our talk for Web 2.0. Would love any feedback you have!

Size Does Matter

@clayparkerjones and I have an upcoming talk at Web 2.0 Expo that challenges the idea of 'scale' in business. Our mission is to break a marketing model where collecting impressions is more important than making them. Our message is that things want to be small. 

Here's a quick example of the thinking behind our vision:

Consider that most people assume the Third World is in Africa. In reality, if you segment the income levels and living standards into region instead of continent, you'll find that there are pockets of poverty in every country. The Third World is actually an international phenomenon. 

In business, we need to break down our continental budgets into regions.

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A quick riff on brands who become obsessed with being like their targets. Let me know what you think!

What if marketing was less about persuading people and more about positioning them in the right types of social networks? 

If word of mouth is the most influential factor in purchasing behavior the it should follow that marketers need to place the convinced next to the undecided, the uninitiated next to the initiated. 

Imagine consumers as a chessboard. The opposing king being your target consumer and all your pieces being loyal advocates. Your aim here is to advance your pieces toward the target. Each piece, like each individual consumer, moves in a different way. The queen is someone who is ready to advocate your product in any circumstance. She is ready to announce, debate and persuade those who stand in her way. Pawns take a more subtle approach. They recommend where they see fit and understand that they can’t always win every battle.

There will be a check mate position, where your target consumer is surrounded by enough of the right people to purchase your product.

In a remarkable act of coordination, Australia's public has split its vote for a ruling party exactly in half. 

A win for symmetry but not for the nation.

If democracy was a house then hung parliaments would be this quirky basement locked to the general public. We, the people, would press our ears to the floor, as the murmurs of our government's formation slipped through the cracks. 

In other words, we have jack-shit input into who leads our country. And the fidelity of the policies we voted for are sacrificed:

The parties' failure to gain a majority in their own right means neither can claim a mandate for the policies they took to the election. The side that finally reaches a deal with the independents will probably have had to change its policies to achieve that deal.  

Ross Gittins, Economics Editor for the Sydney Morning Herald

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No, 'spreadable media' does not refer to an advertising campaign for Nutella. It is, instead, a new term being promoted by a team of antivirals led by Henry Jenkins. Their purpose: eliminate the word 'viral' from our vocabulary. 

On the surface, it's an argument over semantics but, the debate over the metaphor of a virus is really about conflicting views on agency. 

Do people act on their own volition?

Jenkins et al (colleagues & friends included) argue that every instance of online communication is conscious. Actively selected; precisely distributed. When we pass things along it is for clearly articulated, social reasons: to gain status, strengthen bonds and define collective identity.  

Content spreads on account of people not producers. In other words, you can't design a virus without the cooperation of people spreading it. 

I'm less convinced that people are always in control. Lesser still, that people are conscious of their motivations. 

80% of self-identified bisexuals are only interested in one gender. 

The Big Lies People Tell In Online Dating, OKCupid. 

If sexuality is more about personal image than who you want to schtoop then, who is in control? The antivirals would argue that it's a conscious decision to present a certain image to a network–it was still a purposeful act. But, isn't an external force behind that purpose? Isn't the brand of 'bisexuality' overpowering the emotional and physical need to relate with both sexes? 

I'd bet that we largely share content unconsciously. In other words, the driving force behind our decisions to share are mysterious to us and rarely pre-planned.  

In 1994, David Hahn began building a nuclear reactor. He would eventually receive international recognition for his work, and a nick-name to boot: the 'radioactive boy scout'. 

Indeed, David was a teenager playing with radioactive materials in his mother's backyard shed. And his recognition was for creating an environmental hazard not a new source of energy.  

In later life, his bootstrap experiments led to some emotional and physical harm–exposure to radiation leaving severe scars all over his face. 

The need to discover is usually a positive trait.

But, when your subject matter is dangerous and your lab doesn't protect you or others, experiments are a bad idea.

(Fire and schools, for example.)

It got me thinking: a person should look for the most dangerous experiment to conduct without catastrophic consequences. If a proverbial explosion is likely to occur then steps should be made to shield the effects.

Or, hide the evidence of your destruction.

If you like tomatoes and I like tomahtoes, it's likely that the whole thing will be called off. 

The part of the economy that I call home is populated by organizations obsessed with scale–more products, more consumers.

Disagreement, in this fast-moving environment, is not a core value. To argue is to put a brake on progression and without progress we have discontent.

(An opposition to Oscar Wilde's assertion that "discontent is the first step in the progress of a man.")

Our aversion to conflict has left us with dependent and linear business processes. It's not often, for example, that a project is halted because a project team realized that they were answering the wrong question. 

And we often make false assumptions early on. Assumptions that we can disagree with but can't do anything about because there are no more hours allocated to problem definition.  

Projects should run in a non-linear fashion with constant opportunity to disagree.  

It's a little counterintuitive, though.

How could we make the solution to a problem we are still defining? 

In this model, you are forced to acknowledge what you don't know. You are forced to make much smaller solutions based on your current knowledge of a problem. What you make must also be adaptable. An investment is made, for example, in redesigning a contact form instead of a whole website. 

The small solutions you make help you define and re-define the problem as you go along. 

For anyone who has submitted for SXSW, an info-graphic of proposal topics.

Don't forget to vote for our (@clayparkerjones & @alexanderchung) talk!

Vote here: http://panelpicker.sxsw.com/ideas/view/6673

Hi resolution here. 

A quick riff on systems that break and how to prepare for them. Let me know what you think!

Designing For Failure

No, that's it. And then? No 'and then' that's all I want. And then? And then nothing else because I'm done ordering. And then? I refuse to play your Chinese food mind games! And then? No and then! And then? No and then! And then? No and then! 

If you're like me and enjoy a good joke at the expense of the Chinese, you'll recognize this dialogue from Dude, Where's My Car? where Ashton Kutcher encounters an insufferable drive through lady.

Underneath the hilarity is a lesson in poor strategic reasoning–and it has nothing to do with Ashton's new agency. 

We are too quick to place an 'and then' within our statements.

We buy a million impressions and then people will buy more of our product. 

In this case, we've assumed a linear relationship between impressions and purchase. How many steps are we missing in between? 

From experience, the 'and then' statement should be:

We buy a million impressions and then we are ignored by most people.

'And then' marries nouns and verbs that should never be in the same sentence. After full page take overs, it should be the first thing to avoid as a strategist. 

On a cold January morning, a busker played his violin at a Washington DC metro station. Thousands of people past as he played 6 Bach pieces for about 45 minutes. 

He made $32. 

This would have been an average wage had the man not been Joshua Bell, a Grammy award-winning violinist.

Three days earlier, he had filled Boston's Symphony Hall at $100 a seat.

A branded website can suffer the same fate as a virtuoso busking at a train station. Incoming traffic is largely anonymous and uninvested. People's minds are elsewhere.

(Mike & Bud speculate kittens and porn.)

If marketers hope to use websites as tools of persuasion they need to be more precise about the people who they attract and the content that is presented to them.

It's about being specific:

• What was the visitor doing 30 seconds before they entered your site? 
• What do they talk about online?
• What's their username?
• What company do they work for?

And, it's about designing specifically. Imagine a branded site that changed its content for different professions. A different message for dentists and dog-walkers. 

Increase organic growth by exposing audiences to the brand through breakthrough viral communications

Source: What the fuck is my social media strategy?

Amorphous language is marketing's greatest curse. 

We can't describe things in specific terms because our profession is, at best, a compromise. We borrow from psychology, sprinkle a little mathematics and glue everything together with a dose of politics.

Do we acheive everything or nothing?

In moments of personal incompetence, I attribute omission of detail to the iceberg theory. I leave the crux of the story below the surface–a literary device.

I'm subtle, not stupid. 

Simply using the word 'because' during interpersonal influence will dramatically increase the success of your requests. People are, as Ellen Langer puts it, mindlessly compliant.

If in doubt, dress your ridiculous arguments in logical sentence structures. 

It seems that we're persuaded by form more than content. A virtuoso violinist will make a busker's wage playing at a train-station and an arm-chair philosopher will gain a mass following if they are published in the New Yorker. 

We're not listening as hard as we'd hoped. 

One sentence structure that I suspect is making me stupid: it's less about x and more about y. Either everyone I talk to is speaking off-topic or I'm superb at redirecting conversations to my schedule. 

To have impact, it needs to be easy for people to dive in and search it and get something out of it.

Julien Assange, an advisory board member at Wikileaks

If you speak to a painting it does not talk back.

In the Socratic tradition, recordings of life - like writing - can never replace the memories of real experience. "Your invention [writing]," says Socrates, "will enable you to hear many things without being properly taught."

Following this philosophy, how do we reduce the layers of abstraction between audiences and reality? 

Wikileaks did it with 92,000 classified documents; The Guardian did it with over 700,000 politician expense reports.

In both cases, the writing layer was forfeited for the ability to browse first hand evidence. The audience was given a blank canvas to paint their own picture. 

Girls assess risk by evaluating the probability that a given activity will lead to injury. Boys, on the other hand, judge risk by the severity of the injury an activity might cause. 

Source: The Rejection Gene, Chizoba Nnaemeka.

Pain is a cost of entry in the male world.

For bros icing bros, it's the sting of downing a Smirnoff Ice. For George Bush's war, it's a running tally of deaths, wounds and waste.

It seems, as designers, we should be using punishment as a reward mechanism–for frat boys and frat boys-turned president. 

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In a company like ours where 70 percent of our margins are generated on the advertising side, we must develop a much, much more effective financial relationship with the consumer.