CULTUREMAKING

Culturemaker: William Ford Gibson

 

[IMAGE VIA CLR]

Following on from my second to last post, I’ve decided to ramble on about another culturemaker, which I’m hoping to become a (relatively!) regular feature of this blog.  A culturemaker being someone that has shaped or influenced culture in a rather significant, often visible, way; be it through an idea, theory, act, event, production, object or design of some sort.  So, without further delay, I’d like to turn to the science fiction genre, and specifically to American-Canadian novelist William Gibson (b. 1948)—one of the leading exponents of cyberpunk.

Gibson is best known in trends or marketing circles for his widely, perhaps even overly quoted maxim: "The future’s already here, it’s just not evenly distributed yet" [1].  However, there’s far more to Gibson’s sci-fi literary canon than a sweet justification to hire the coolhunting brigade.  Gibson has also played an inspirational role in making ‘future culture’ accessible to sci-fi geeks, filmmakers, designers and beyond—as well as adding an air of anticipation and excitement to trend pitches, briefings and yet another trends book!

So, please allow me to play my get out jail free card by saying that this is merely a tribute, call to action, reminder, teaser even—depending on which happens to apply—to some retrospective insights from the cyber-dude himself. Needless to say the full, official, Gibson historiography will be written in the future by cyborg archaeologists far more equipped for the task than I—ironically inspired by one of his own novels of course!

Digital Identities

Lets start in an obvious place.  The Internet.  The Internet has a kind-of awkward piecemeal history; one often neglecting Gibson who deserves much credit for coining ‘cyberspace’ in Neuromancer [2], and conceptually anticipating its form and role in the modern day.  Faris observed the distribution of identity not so long ago, whilst a similar idea has also received David’s trademark graphic design treatment to enhance its viral propensity.  Check out this precursory quote then―from Gibson’s short story Johnny Mnemonic [3]—that dates back to good ol’ 1985 (I’m sure the Back to the Future connection is just pure coincidence):

It's impossible to move, to live, to operate at any level without leaving traces, bits, seemingly meaningless fragments of personal information.

Yes, Google your name and providing it’s not John Smith (or similar), I’m sure you’ll soon be reacquainted with some cheesy restaurant review that you submitted in 2001.  Or alternatively, you might just find that Linked In has befriended you without the slightest means of permission. 

What is more, with web 3.0 rumours brewing, Gibson’s “It seems as though the Net itself has become conscious,” [4] might not be too far away.  But if not, don’t get too worried about it, after all, “The Net is a waste of time, and that's exactly what's right about it” [5].

Changing the model?

Advertising and branding are increasingly coming under fire: or at least, somehow, they seem to be simultaneously increasing and diminishing in importance.  In any Case(y)—sorry, poor Gibson joke—his point that: “far more creativity, today, goes into the marketing of products than into the products themselves” probably helps explain marketers' retreat to productopia.

Not only that, but in a William & Gibson ad agency, rebranding to an ideas agency doesn’t quite cut the mustard:

I want to make the public aware of something they don’t quite yet know that they know—or have them feel that way.  Because they’ll move on that, do you understand?  They’ll think they’ve thought of it first.  It’s about transferring information, but at the same time about a certain lack of specificity [6].

Re-imagining, re-inventing, re-mixing, re-stating, re-wording, stealing etc. etc.

It’s as though the creative process is no longer continued within one individual skull, if indeed it ever was.  Everything, today, is to some extent the reflection of something else [6].

Okay, so Gibson was hardly the first guy to note this idea—the BBB brothers (Barthes, Bakhtin, Baudrillard) had all cottoned onto something similar years before—, but Gibson’s cultural remix really nails it for me:

This stuff is simulacra of simulacra of simulacra.  A diluted tincture of Ralph Lauren, who had himself diluted the glory days of Brooks Brothers, who themselves had stepped on the product of Jermyn Street and Savile Row, flavouring their ready-to-wear with liberal lashings of polo kit and regimental stripes.  But Tommy surely is the null point, the black hole.  There must be some Tommy Hilfiger event horizon, beyond which it is impossible to be more derivative, more removed from the source, more derived of soul [6].

I have to agree you know.  Everything was going just fine before Tommy joined the cultural (re)production line …

History

Again treading heavily in philosophical waters, there’s more than a dash of Nietzschean and Foucauldian genealogy in Gibson’s:

I only know that the one constant in history is change: the past changes.  Our version of the past will interest the future to about the extent we’re interested in whatever past the Victorians believed in [6].

Yep, Gibson knows his history, and equally the importance of always historicising:

When I began to write fiction that I knew would be published as science fiction, part of what I brought to it was the critical knowledge that science fiction was always about the period in which it was written. '1984' is really about 1948. It can't really be understood outside the historical context of 1948 [7].

To the extent that, arguably, “one day we’ll need archaeologists to help us guess the original storylines of even classic films!" [6]. 

And when you get intellectual uberweights like Fredric Jameson [8] analysing your stories, I guess you know you know you’re doing something right! 

Ethnopunk

It appears this word already has a meaning, but I’m all for polysemy and multivocality! Gibson’s acute observations and depictions of urban culture add a further layer of appeal to his stories.  This one particularly resonated with me personally: 

Soho on a Monday morning has its own peculiar energy.  She wants to tap into that for a few minutes [6].

The transformation of object meanings, vis-à-vis social action, also finds a home in Gibson’s Burning Chrome [9], where “the street finds its own uses for things.”

Future

It seems only right to end with the future, and a slightly more modest take on Gibson’s creative futuristic exuberance:

Dreaming in public is an important part of our job description, as science writers, but there are bad dreams as well as good dreams. We're dreamers, you see, but we're also realists, of a sort [10].

And just to put rumours to rest:

I've had a growing frustration, particularly when I would go out and do book tours and interviews. I got frustrated with people asking me, 'How do you know what the future is going to be like?' And I'd always say, 'I don't' [10].

A-ha!

Refs

[1] Interview on NPR’s ‘Talk of the Nation,’ 30 November, 1999
[2] Neuromancer, 1984
[3] Johnny Mnemonic (Omni, 1981)
[4] Time Magazine, 19th August, 1996
[5] New York Times, 14th July,1996
[6] Pattern Recognition, 2003
[7] Special to CNN, 4th Feb, 2003
[8] Archaeologies of the Future (Fredric Jameson, 2007)
[9] Burning Chrome, 1981
[10] National Academy of Sciences Convocation on Technology and Education, 10th May, 1993

Text messages ... for real

Even as a marketing-type fella, I find it hard to comprehend how we're exposed to thousands upon thousands of messages a day (can't recall the exact figure).  In any case, here's a modest four that popped up in my world the day - from New York onto Chicago ...

Culturemaker: Antoni Gaudí i Cornet

   

[IMAGE VIA WIKIMEDIA]

For those of you who have paid even a passing visit to Barcelona, I suspect the genius of architect Antoni Gaudí needs no introduction.

For those in waiting, Gaudí graced Barcelona with some of the greatest architectural designs ever conceived up until his death in 1926.  And as with so many genius types, the true extent of his achievements was not properly recognised until sometime after.

Gaudí’s oeuvre is considered to be the finest exemplar of Catalan Modernisme: a cultural movement roughly dated between 1896-1911 that embraced more ornate and decorate forms of design.  More specifically our friend Wikipedia notes that ...

It is characterized by the predominance of the curve over the straight line, by rich decoration and detail, by the frequent use of vegetal and other organic motifs, the taste for asymmetry, a refined aestheticism, and the dynamic shapes. 

Interestingly, Gaudí believed that differences in architecture were caused more by culture, society, politics and religion than aesthetics per se.

Gaudí was also deeply fascinated by nature, creatively capturing both environmental and human forms within his designs.  In his own words ...

Originality consists of returning to the origin. Thus, originality means returning, through one's resources, to the simplicity of the early solutions.

And again ...

Everything comes from the great book of nature.

Gaudí was also an innovator par excellence, incorporating ground-breaking ventilation systems within his designs a good thirty years before they gained mainstream acceptance.  Further buttressing his nature-loving credentials, Gaudí was even an early precursor to the recent wave of eco-architects—using and reusing local materials wherever possible.

So, here’s a selection of some of my favourite works.  I’ve used a combination of personal photograph’s, random postcards and extracts from Gaudí: The Entire Works to try and do justice to the sheer brilliance of his designs.  Casa Batlló is my personal favourite, with its nod to surrealism, and admired by a certain Salvador Dalí.

The chimneys to Palau Güell

Arches of the cloister at the Theresan College

Roof of the porter’s pavilion at Park Grüell

The Winding Bench at Park Grüell

The façade of Casa Batlló

Private staircase at Casa Batlló

The skylight at Casa Batlló

The chimney at Casa Batlló

The attic at Casa Batlló

The roof of Casa Batlló

The nativity façade of the Sagrada Familia

The columns of the Sagrada Familia

The pinnacle of the Sagrada Familia

The Tipping Point's metaphorical windfall

 

[IMAGE VIA THERESE FLANAGAN]

Several years ago Malcolm Gladwell’s The Tipping Point became essential reading for the marketing intelligentsia.

As in, if you didn’t have a crumpled copy leisurely positioned on your desk, you were like … one strange marketing dude, or just better off getting a career in finance or something (okay, okay, I exaggerate ...). 

Needless to say though, it’s key principles require no repetition here - but please feel free to nip off and sneak a top-line refresher here and here - providing you come back.

Since then Gladwell’s core thesis has sustained a few jabs and body shots from within the blogosphere (see here and here for example), but overall its basic tenets have stayed pretty much intact and continue to remain important axioms for viral marketing efforts and such like.

Rather than getting all technical with the idea itself, the question I would like to propose here is a rather simple one. Well, sort of.

To what extent is the success of the Tipping Point down to being an absolutely brilliant metaphor that people can instantly grasp and relate to vs being a completely robust theory that holds immense practical value for marketers?

This is not to suggest that Gladwell fails on the latter, only that the former is possibly even more accountable for the book’s extraordinary success. 

Once again, I find myself (re)turning to this old chestnut on representation (I think I'm alone in my enthusiasm, but heh ...), where the allure of the metaphor is so appealing that it effectively renders the theory 'correct' simply by virtue of popular reference and usage.  That is to say, the "Tipping Point", as metaphor, has become so deeply ingrained in everyday marketing parlance that the Gladwellian explanation (which is only one of many possible ways of explaining the Tipping Point phenomenon) almost becomes a given.  But whether 'right' or 'wrong', it makes Gladwell no less of a marketing genius, that's for sure!

In fact, such has been the sheer reverberation of the Tipping Point's Tipping Point (sorry), that smugly unleashing this killer metaphor in workshops/meetings is now turning into one of those clichéd moments that’s rivaling the 'USP' and 'emotional connection' for top spot on the prestigious marketer buzzword chart.

Of course, the eco-nista's are lapping it up too now (and who can blame them), but when The Sun starts talking about the Climatic Tipping Point, you have to wonder whether it's almost too sticky for its own good!  Or at least, I very much doubt that everyone who's using the metaphor has read the book and wholeheartedly endorses the theory.  But does it really matter?  In short, tough if it does!

So, what’s the crux of the post? 

Metaphors.  They rock n roll n sell ... so fire at will!

After all, when best-selling economists start resorting to uncharacteristically freaky behaviour, and generally favouring long tails over scientific manuscripts, you know there’s something fishy going on, even if their myopic lens might convince us otherwise! ;)

Oh, and metaphorical re-mixing and scratching is especially encouraged here at Culturemaking, but then I guess you already knew that.

A magazine comeb(l)ack

Once upon a time there used to be a thing called a magazine ... yes, you might remember it!

As good as some news-sites and blogs are, perhaps the trusty magazine isn’t out for the count just yet.

One of the finer specimens that I’ve come across recently is Esquire’s ‘Big Black Book 2007’ on US import, which is packed to the brim with great style without the kind of pretentious photography that can leave the all-important clothes/products so obscured these days.

And what's interesting, is that whilst media 2.0 goes increasingly reader-centric, it would appear that the fading men’s lifestyle magazine is staging somewhat of an advisory-style comeback.  But whereas in the eighties it was all about embracing prescriptive looks, codes, rules etc. all rather literally, its 2007 reprise comes with an ironic knowing wink.

So here are 10 law-like reasons on why any aspiring neo-yuppie should buy a copy - or risk expulsion from ‘high society’ forthwith! ;)

1. You get a ‘black book’ for the price of a magazine

2. It’s not actually black, it’s red!

3. It’s officially ‘The Style Manual for Successful Men’ – it says so on the front cover.  You want to be successful, right?

4. Find out ‘The Essentials: The most vital and stylish possessions a man can own [that] are some of the ones that help him enjoy life’

5. Familiarise yourself with ‘The New Authentics: four modern masters [that] look to the past and fuse time-honoured techniques with traditional cloths for results that look surprisingly contemporary’

6. The suit is shrinking.  Find out why

7. An interesting essay on ‘The Long Road – now that luxury is ubiquitous, it takes special effort to create – and obtain – something truly special’

8. A nice overview of ‘The Bespoke Life – the unique experiences, the extraordinary objects, and the singular luxuries of a customized world,’ including the suit, the shirt, the shoes and the vacation. 

9. A brilliant section at the back on grey sugar paper (for effect), slickly named ‘The Information’.  It covers maintenance (cogent wisdom and sage advice on keeping body, soul, and all your stuff in prime condition); formality (because serious business requires a little thought and effort); informality (everything you need to know about dressing down but not out) and best of all, etiquette (a quasi-scientifical guide to modern civility and human behaviour).  The 'casualometer' is also worth checking out - a rare journo-structuralist encounter that I'm sure Claude Lévi-Strauss would approve of.

Here are some tasters ... [note: legal team, please don't hurt me, surely you can see how I'm positively publicising your magazine here!]

10. And finally, in the words of the editor himself ...

[T]his volume of our Big Black Book contains many of the best things on earth … We explore what sets some things apart from others: We [tell] the stories behind the best objects ever made.  We [try] to demonstrate the difference between that which is truly valuable and that which is merely expensive.

I really like this angle on luxury - sounds like a sensible rapprochement of brand and product.

The cultural relativism of HSBC

I’ve been meaning to blog about this since I spotted them at the airport a while back.

I don’t have an HSBC account, so I can't vouch for the quality of their services and all that, but I’ve long been a fan of their “The world’s local bank” idea.  This was particularly smart at a time (around 2001 I think) when Barclays was boasting about how ‘big’ they were, only to close down hundreds of their smaller branches all over rural parts of the UK around the same time - bloody accountants eh! ;)

So here’s some recent examples from HSBC's culturally sensitive oeuvre.  The idea is a rather simple one, but then I guess the best ones often are …

 

Friday chuckle

Forgive me if this did the rounds ages ago and I missed it, otherwise if Jack Nicholson on advertising sounds like fun then suggest you give it a go ...

Branding: life after death?

It seems fashionable in blogging circles at the moment to reluctantly utter (or celebrate – depending on ones perspective!) death on thy business neighbour.  Yes, if our faithful RSS feeders are to be believed, advertising is dead, marketing is dead, and now it would seem that even branding (the artform that we have held tightly to our bosom for so long) is experiencing major turbulence and fast plummeting nose-down into the dead sea! 

It’s difficult to locate when this first happened, but I suspect Naomi Klein had, at the very least, a passing influence.  Ironically, by attempting to unpick the very seams of branding, she produced a book that was more revealing about how to ‘do branding’ than 99% of marketing textbooks, with some nice ethical learning points for good measure (perhaps Nike could have got to this earlier had they properly digested it).

Let’s take a look at the brand itself as a cultural symbol for a sec.  Without getting too etymologically hung up on things, brands no longer simply stand for positive meanings of trust and quality … if they ever did.  They have become inflected with a host of negative meanings such as image over substance, excessive prices, globalisation, conspicuous logos, subliminal messaging, McWorlds, StarbuckianScapes and Swooshified® Towns to name but a few.  It’s become a catch all for everything that is ambiguous, unexplainable and immeasurable with regards to a ‘company’ in marketing, and a scapegoat for things corrupt, untrue, big, bad and evil in commerce besides.  In sum then, people are no looking quite so smug on Brandtopia Boulevard, and many a marketer is already fleeing for the green marketing hills!

In a somewhat bizarre twist then, it’s starting to feel like ye olde product (materiality or stuff if you prefer) is making a surging comeback.  Yep, whilst the pomo branding brigade were busy losing themselves in hyperreality, it seems the techy guys sussed out their symbolic code and snuck in through the NPD back door. Which means we’re back to the land of utility maximisation, right?  After all, isn’t Innocent and the recent run of success stories just plain simple great products, nothing more?  A tempting outlook, but let's not get carried away ...

Of course the classic advertising and branding story goes that products are undifferentiated these days; that the point of difference is purely the imagery bestowed upon it.  Well, from where I’m standing (bearing in mind that semiotics and the like is my local hood!) apart from a brief moment in fashion when people were paying £200 for a jumper simply because it had the initials “D&G” bestowed upon it, products have always mattered.  I’m not saying that word-of-mouth, negative PR and product reviews in magazines are perfect at separating the wheat from the chaff, but within reason, suspect products (by this I mean it fits badly, works terribly, tastes awful, combusts instantaneously upon purchase etc.) dressed up as sexy brands have only gone so far.  Not to say that the ‘best’ products have always emerged victorious for sure, but, it’s always been a balancing act.  And I dare say that in our eco-aware, health/nutrition-conscious climate, pressure will be increasingly mounting to bring balance to the marketing force.

[A quick note to any readers of precious post-structuralist type ilk (all two of you!): I’m not saying that material properties are devoid of any form of socially constructed meaning: clearly things like durability, speed, etc. are themselves socio-historically situated and subject to representation.  But, nevertheless, these still have ‘real effects' in the rough n tumble world that you and I know.  Anyway …]

What I don’t want to suggest is that we go back full circle to the product-is-all-that-matters philosophy either.  When viewed as the symbolic dimension of an object or product, brands are always going to exist regardless of whether they are 'engineered directly' so to speak.  So even if a company is completely product design-focused, they will still end up with some sort of brand at the end of the day.  Through this alternative material-cultural lens, perhaps we can safely say that there are a few things left to say about brands after all.  This feels more interesting and productive than being bogged down by the latest set of cultural meanings that just so happen to be associated with the word ‘brand’ through negative press, overuse, marketer abuse and the usual set of clichés. 

In the spirit of shameful appropriation then (especially given his aversion to materiality!), here’s a branding slant on Jacque Derrida’s words regarding the future of deconstruction …

It’s necessary to distinguish between the fate of the word ‘brand’, and other things that are able to develop as a ‘brand’ without the name.  The word will not be used indefinitely.  It will wear itself out.  But beyond the word, this might take a little longer…

So there you have it.  Jacque is back.  Culturemaking is back (or so he says).  And brands will be kind of back eventually – once products get the fuller recognition they deserve.  And in the end, we're still probably better to also try and influence brand symbolism directly than rely purely on product design performance alone – and let retail/distribution, the media, viral effects and plain ol' serendipity do all the symbolic heavy-loading for us ... right?

A blogger's cold

[IMAGE VIA AN-HA]

Hey.  I know what you’re thinking … he writes an annoyingly long post and then thinks he can bugger off on a blogging holiday for a few months!

I know it’s blogging etiquette around here (socially constructed ‘rules’, you see ;) to leave some kind of message when you do a disappearing act, so I’m sorry that I failed miserably on that front! 

Particularly for letting Asi down, after his very kind plug.  And also, for contributing to the more general silence that has been picked up by the 'always on' Faris ... blame Facebook I say! ;)  Plus I was finally building up a semi-half-decent hit rate, or at least so my statcounter led me to believe, so please hang in there fellow cyber-dudes!

The truth is that the last month or so has been a bit tricky on many levels, work and personal, so blogging has taken a back seat.  Even my RSS feeder is reaching atom-ic meltdown, so if I’ve missed any must-see posts (it could even be your own!) then please comment away …

I’m hoping a better service to resume very soon – not that I’m the most prolific at the best of times anyway ... I don’t know how some of you blogging machines do it!  But full respect to y'all.

See you soon ... M

Civilisation Take 2.0

[IMAGE VIA ZAP ART]

The word is about, there's something evolving,
whatever may come, the world keeps revolving
They say the next big thing is here,
that the revolution's near,
but to me it seems quite clear
that it's all just a little bit of history repeating

('History Repeating' - The Propellerheads feat. Dame Shirley Bassey)

Whenever homo sapiens first walked the earth (please feel free to contextualise this with you own date, theory, religion etc.) clearly there would have been no such things as institutions, governments, and (heaven-for-bid-it) brands.  It would have been, more or less, one big social free-for-all; where people could pretty much go off gallivanting around wherever they wanted.

But then soon enough small tribes formed in order to create some form of social system and territorial boundaries.  Thereafter, we all know the basic story: this eventually snowballed into villages, towns and cities; with empires, aristocracies, governments, presidents, prime ministers and the like on hand to keep us all in check.  So, whereas once upon a time we more or less did as we pleased, now there were geographical, social, political, economic and cultural boundaries in place which limited what we could and couldn’t do.

In terms of the much more recent ‘Internet revolution’ (or other such term - pick your own metaphor!) a question that I keep asking myself is whether this is 'all just a little bit of history repeating?' (to quote Dame Shirley Bassey from a rather brilliant Propellarheads track).  To flesh out this thought a little, two examples - the 'communitisation' of marketing-related blogging and regulation of web 2.0 – feel rather apt, so here I go …

The 'communitisation' of marketing-related blogging: a 100% unofficial, partial, incomplete account

Towards the end of 1997 when blogging first started out (in the Jorn Barger sense at least), it would have been rather like a digital ghost-town.  Few blogging hosts; few blogs; few users etc.  But following the lauch of Open Diary (1998), LiveJournal (1999) and Blogger (1999), blogging soon started to gain momentum.  By 2001 blogging was becoming an increasingly visible phenomenon, and by 2002 a number of American political communities had emerged, fuelled, in particular, by discussion of the Iraq war.  Meanwhile, the world of business had also caught on, but the marketing blogging scene consisted mainly of passionate early adopters and solus blogging experiments rather than distinct communities per se. 

To gain a kind of retro-fitting experience, I decided to follow veteran blogger Russell Davies’ posts from Aug 2003 (well, a bit of the way through anyway), and even then you can get a vibe of what it might have been like.  For example, from his first fifty posts he received only four comments - whereas nowadays the reverse scenario is far more likely (interestingly, there is a comment on Russell’s first post, but this actually came much later – coincidentally from another curious blogging archaeologist called Marcus in April 2007).  Many of the other earlier marketing-related blogs that I know of such as Adland (2000 - in blog form), Adrants (March 2002), This Blog Sits At (Aug 2002), The Hidden Persuader (Aug 2003) and Living Brands (Aug 2004) also follow a similar development curve.  Something that stands to reason about this 'golden age' (as Russell refers to it) is that (I sense) there would have been less pressure and a greater sense of freedom back then.  No thousands of ardent RSS feed-readers to entertain; one blog to maintain – not several; no critical onlookers; less need to split up work and personal life, and so on.

Around the end of 2004 something significant was starting to happen.  A largely US 'marketing as disruption and conversation' scene was blossoming – notably by Seth Godin and Hugh McLeod – whilst Russell was fast attracting a largely UK-US mix of enlightened planners that had finally found a virtual shoulder to theorise on (now commonly referred to as the Plannersphere).  Then slightly later, a graphic design strand started to gain momentum, courtesy of blogs like The Design Observer and Noisy Decent Graphics.  In the case of the Plannersphere specifically, we can now see how initiatives such as Coffee Mornings, the Plannershere Wiki and Account Planning School of the Web (which has since migrated shores), combined with Faris’ AccountPlan.ning and Beersphere have fostered and cemented a sense of community even further.  Elsewhere, Grant McCracken has also spoken enthusiastically about the potential for a Blogger's Business School with a strong cultural component (a lovely idea I must say – no cultural bias here of course!).  This list is far from exhaustive, but we can nonetheless see how an open virtual space is starting to arrange itself into smaller, more manageable, focused virtual communities.  Of course, these are far from being independent communities – they overlap considerably, yet, there is still a sense of consolidation and clustering taking shape.

Now, I am certainly not suggesting that this is a bad thing - on the contrary, I think it’s fantastic that like-minded people have been able to come together.  But nevertheless, we can see how a process of 'communitisation' is underway.  One where marketing, as a floating subject of interest in cyberspace, is being softly institutionalised by a nexus of virtual communities - even if they’re considerably less rigid than their offline, physical counterparts.  Moreover, if we take the evolution of the blog to its logical conclusion, it begs the question: to what extent do people really own their blog?  After all, if consumers’ own and control brands, then surely other blogger’s own your blog, right?  Well, I prefer the idea that both brands and blogs are co-created, rather than purely consumer-owned, but nevertheless, pleasing yourself and pleasing your readers can soon turn out to be a more two-pronged affair.

The regulation of web 2.0

Roughly running in parallel, we have also seen developments on the web applications side.  Wikipedia may currently remain open source, but the technicalities are now more technical, and the pressure and responsibility of educating the world accurately is mounting.  Google is fast becoming more complex, cluttered, commercial and intrusive vs its minimalist ‘just hit search’ virginity years.  And most significantly of all, we have seen MySpace – the daddy of social networking since 2004 - see its crown being eyed-up by the fiercely growing Facebook community.  Ironically, given the ‘open’ ethos of everything 2.0, many people feel that Facebook’s competitive advantage has come from its superior privacy settings.   As a closed network built on trust, it steers people to others that they’ve already met in the outside world, rather than just cyber-randoms.

Yet many people are still finding the openness of Facebook increasingly challenging.  There is something about putting relatives, friends, old school chums and (ex) work colleagues all in one virtual space that can feel uncomfortable.  Not to mention receiving invitations from people one barely knows or would rather leave behind at the school gate, yet feel obligated to accept them for the worry of offending.  Identities may well be distributed, but within the Facebook microcosm specifically, postmodern-style chameleonism is actually quite tricky.  And just as Facebook looks set to trump MySpace by offering greater privacy settings and user control, the question begs whether there is an opportunity for a competitor to do the same to Facebook e.g. by giving people even greater control over the ability to further organise and partition their friends perhaps?  The problem with social networking platforms - but one that creates opportunities for competitors - is the difficulty of back-tracking once companies have committed to a certain modus operandi.      

An open ended final thought: the freedom vs control paradox

Both of these examples demonstrate how the Internet is subtly becoming more organised and regulated.  To revisit my earlier analogy, it is going through a process not too dissimilar to the way in which civilisation evolved over thousands of years; where continents, countries, cities, towns and villages became geographically marked; governments formed; along with organisations and institutions of every colour and stripe. 

But just before I push the analogy too far and find myself surrounded by angry bearded historians and red-eyed futurologists, an important distinction is that the Internet is being regulated by everyone – from the big power plays made by Google, Facebook, PayPal and co. to the embryonic stepping stones made by everyday open source contributors.  So it’s far from being a simple top-down affair; it’s more top-down, bottom-up, side-to-side, and any other trajectory that takes your fancy.  Moreover, isn’t increasing organisation and regulation only a natural counter response to increasing freedom?  To name but a few obvious examples, we have Google and Wikipedia empowering education and learning; MySpace and Facebook empowering togetherness and communication; Blogger and TypePad empowering self-publishing and conversation; and Google Maps and Google Earth empowering geographical awareness and mobility.

So, we find ourselves in a situation where we have the freedom to voice our enthusiasm, thoughts and ideas; make interesting friends that we never knew we had; and buy-sell anything going with celebrity cache; but on the proviso that we are (at least) hovering around the Powerblogging standard; shielding ourselves from the other crackpots that skew towards the more disturbing side of interesting; taking precautions against identity theft and buying fake products; and otherwise adhering strictly to the blogger's coffee table manual.  Whilst it’s difficult to predict just where this extreme freedom and control duality will ultimately take us (The Matrix ... surely not!), of course we can be sure that it will all seem rather obvious in hindsight.  So for now, let us savour the freedom we all (still) have - as the true pioneering Internet generation, and enjoy the ride.  As I dare say history is going to look back rather fondly on us, being the founders of civilisation take 2.0 and all that.

Take it away Shirley ... ;)

Crack for brand philosopher types

YouTube does it again!

Clips of the publicised debate that took place between Noam Chomsky and Michel Foucault in 1971, nicely summed up here as:

[O]ne of the most original, provocative, and spontaneous exchanges to have occurred between contemporary philosophers, and above all serves as a concise introduction to their basic theories. What begins as a philosophical argument rooted in linguistics (Chomsky) and the theory of knowledge (Foucault), soon evolves into a broader discussion encompassing a wide range of topics, from science, history, and behaviorism to creativity, freedom, and the struggle for justice in the realm of politics.

Enjoy.

Embracing failure since 1848

[IMAGE VIA THE AMERICAS LIBRARY]

I've long been a fan of Wieden & Kennedy's embrace failure philosophy.

Not only is it a great way of motivating staff and clients to push creative boundaries, but on a personal level, I'm conscious that the fear of failure rears its ugly head more often than I would like it to.

I was therefore quite chuffed with this little find; a quote courtesy of J.S. Haliday, author of The World Rushed In, capturing life in California during the 1848-1855 gold rush:

"As like no where else, you can fail in California. And I think the California gold rush taught people that failure was okay.  And the reason being that everyone failed in California - everyone, every day.  So failure, was not a distinction, not a burden, not a mark, not a shame. Failure in Des Moin, failure in Youngstown, failure in Savannah, failure in Philadelphia, well, you'd hear "what's the matter with you?  Your father's disappointed in you." You don't want to fail at home. But you feel free to fail in California. The result is that people accepted failure - which is the equivalent of saying they are willing to take risks. And California has been the most risk-taking economy and society in the nation. Maybe in the world."

This also highlights another crucial point: don't ignore history and the way that it has comes to shape the present.  Embrace history - it might just tell you a few things that consumers can't.

Anyone feeling stuff(ed) yet ?

[IMAGE VIA AD LETTERS FIRDGE GENERATOR]

You hardly need to be a discourse analyst to realise that the language (or tone of voice, if you insist) used in marketing comms has been changing rapidly across a variety of product categories; from food to finance.

To (over) simplify a complex evolution, in 1998 Innocent Drinks was born, and in the years that followed much of the marketing world (in the UK at least) started to grow increasingly self-conscious and feel somewhat awkwardly over-dressed.

Supplanting the usual dry, rational, consumer business speak (bound up in a discourse of formalism, fact and truth) came Innocent’s sweet little human-istic words and phrases like “tasty”, “stuff”, “honest”, “no funny business”, “popping in the fridge” et al.

And a stroke of genius it was.  Innocent soon became the must-have drinking accessory for health-conscious mothers and general guilt-ridden fruit-skippers.  In the brand personality sense, Innocent had pretty much inverted the category; making every other fruit juice look dry, stiff, and dull in comparison.

Interestingly enough, this development roughly parallels the shift from third person reporting to first person introspection; from formal letters to informal emails; from consumer magazines to consumer blogs; and from PC’s to Apple Macs.

Pushing this parallel a little further, it’s hardly an exaggeration to say that many a marketing blog uses language that wouldn’t look out of place alongside Innocent’s advertising, website and packaging.  If I had a [insert a single unit of your local currency here] for every time that ‘stuff’ was used in a blog post (mea culpa), I’d be a rich man! 

Indeed ‘stuff’ - a word that was once considered too vague, imprecise, and sloppy to be of any use to the marketing lexicon - is now somewhat of a fashion leader.  In fact, shock horror, I even had an email from one of my management consultant friends the other day sporting the 'stuff' word (bearing in mind he's typically planned his whole life within the confines of an Excel spreadsheet according to the tenets of planning, implementation and control!  Sorry Rish ... ;)

Also hot on its linguistic tail, ‘honesty’ is now being favoured over ‘trust’, whilst ‘unadulterated’ is also climbing rapidly up the copyrighter buzz chart.

But at the very point when this ‘kidult’-like marketing speak is fast-approaching the Gladwellian tipping point, I’m already starting to feel a little queasy.  Is this semantic-symbolic shortcut for sweet, innocent and natural not already starting to create a sea-of-sameness I ask? 

Let’s consider some extracts from Dorset Cereals website for example – a somewhat brave move considering its identity and packaging is one of the slickest around at the moment …

   

And there's more (this time from its packaging) ...

"We take delicious things and add some more delicious things, then we mix them up a bit"

"It's all about enjoying good things with other good things - like a doze and a deckchair, a flag and a sandcastle or rock pools and crabs"

Now don’t get my wrong, this is all admirably bang 'on trend' right now (for want of a better phrase).  But I suspect “splashing in muddy puddles”, “wooden trucks full of chunky slices” and “lovely beach stuff” is only going to look endearing, cute and cuddly for so long.

Further, with so many brands now jumping on Farmer Giles' imperfectly hand-drawn tractor, it’s starting to feel somewhat mushy, contrived and predictable.  As someone who deconstructs FMCG packaging at breakfast, literally, there are only so many stories about "little things" and "lovely stuff" I can read before the gorgonzola-stilton cocktail aroma starts making my eyes water (and quite frankly ruining my breakfast).

But where in future then?  Back to the dry, stiff, man-in-a-white-coat copy of old?  Well, I certainly hope not.  I guess we’ll just have to remain patient and see – unless anyone else happens to have made an early sighting of the next ‘linguistic turn’ that is?

The Interestingness Economy

[IMAGE: EYE OF HAINT]

Finally got round to reading all the great things about the Interesting 2007 gig – that'll teach me for not snapping up a ticket quick enough!

Amongst all of the brilliant blogging after thoughts, here, here and here for example, it’s got me thinking about the related concept of ‘interestingness’, which is something that Jeffre (here, here, here) and Russell (here) have discussed previously.

It might come as no surprise to even the passing title skimmer of this blog, that my humble contribution to the ‘interestingnessphere' (hey, just kidding!) comes by the way of dialling up the importance of culture in the mix.  Specifically, it’s ocurred to me that interestingness is more or less akin to the cultural theorist’s favourite trump card: cultural relevance.

Here’s some thoughts why…

When something interests people on a global or national level it often goes on to become a visible part of mass culture.

If something interests people on a local or group level it can be considered to appealing to a sub-culture, micro-culture, or at least some kind of neo-tribe.

At an individual level (tying in with the above points), a person's cultural background and value system plays a crucial role in interpretation and ultimately what they find interesting.

Following ideas of the socio-cultural variety, what is interesting is never fixed, it is constantly in a state of flux.  And even when things do stay interesting over a long period, most of the time it’s because they’ve reinvented the representation to keep it culturally relevant.

Rethinking, reimagining and reinventing culture is important, since something interesting is often interesting precisely because it usually contains an element of the re-familiar.

I used to have a quote on my blog title (I should bring it back) by George Washington Carver, who’s quoted as saying: “

“When you do the common things in life in an uncommon way, you will command the attention of the world.”

This is something that is culturally relevant, innovative, and therefore, interesting!

I thought I’d be a bit adventurous and try running this quote through a trusty matrix to see what happens …

The outcome suggests that perhaps there are four main manifestations of ‘interesting’ (broadly speaking):

Common things in life in a common way
This is the very familiar, not particularly groundbreaking, but if it’s done better than everyone else (e.g. like the Japanese who value perfection and continuous improvement) it's interesting.  Could also include icons, classics and vintage for example.

Uncommon things in life in a common way
The idea is new and unfamiliar, but the design/execution is familiar, so that people can still relate to it and find it interesting.

Common things in life in an uncommon way
The vision of George Washington Carver above.  The idea is familiar, but the design and execution is renewed/refreshed.  Quite possibly the holy grail of interesting to the mass market.

Uncommon things in life in an uncommon way
Abstraction and ambiguity.  Because the idea and the execution are both unfamiliar, we have no direct frame of reference to guide an interpretation.  More likely to interest imaginative artsy folk.

Also just to note that I’m not suggesting that something has a definitive classification here, or that it won't vary person by person.  Further, idea and design/execution cannot be neatly separated – they are ultimately bound to each other.  But sometimes it can still help to artificially split them - and then piece things back together again when no one's looking ;)

The dark horse of type fonts

Used in the right way, I absolutely love this type font. 

Granted it's not quite consistent across the full 'A-Z' spectrum, but some of the letters (see examples below) totally captivate me.

Any takers for having a guess on what it is? ;)

Yet another London 2012 post ... (but wait, it's a bit different)

 

It’s probably the most ubiquitous image in the blogosphere since Steve Job’s unveiled the iPhone, but I just couldn’t resist.

My initial reaction to the logo is featured on David’s blog here.  David has since added two further posts here and here – one assumes that he’s not a happy bunny! ;)  Elsewhere’s we’ve seen reactions to the logo being limp, nu rave, the dog's breakfast, and generally hurting people's eyes.  A petition is out and growing by the minute.  Marcus Brown has served up a 5-minute PowerPoint makeover for just a tad less than the original 400k fee.  David Airey has hand picked some of the better BBC alternatives.  Whilst James has even gone to the trouble of providing us with a full Olympic history logo de force.

I could quite easily spend the rest of this post giving the logo grief for being steeped in negative cultural connotations, and shooting off wildly into the no (lo)go zone of graphic design.  But I’ll try my best to conjure up some more positive energy.

On a more upbeat note then, and somewhat ironically, I think the logo has done much to highlight the sheer importance of graphic design.  In 'real terms' the logo design should be neither here nor there - it's all about the London 2012 Games in the end, right?  The blood, the sweat, the tears and all that?  Yet, we find ourselves in a situation where the nation is in uproar.  The logo's been slammed by literally every British tabloid.  It's being flagged on all of the major TV news channels.  And the blogosphere is having a bitch fest.  But for what, the sake of a mere graphical representation? 

Yes a representation, it all goes back to this old chestnut.

Representation gives every idea the potential to shine (or communicate in a more compelling and appealing way at least).  But in this particular instance, we find the ‘crisis of representation’ rearing its ugly head.  Where the logo is arguably doing an injustice to the idea of what a London Olympics can offer, and where it's chipping away at British national identity and creative excellence in the process for bad measure.

So what now?  Is the logo already set to join the ranks of the Poll Tax and Millennium Dome as a British national disaster and all-round laughing stock?  Probably.  But perhaps there is still a flicker of hope in the long term.

We need to remember that 2012 is way off, and people’s anxiety levels and cynicism will inevitably fade by then (well, everyone except David anyway! ;)  Things could also start to smooth over once the logo becomes more directly connected to the anticipation and excitement of the event, as TV coverage and London Olympic mania starts to grip the nation (try to think back to the buzz of Euro ’96 for instance).  Then, in the unlikely event that Britain has a great 2012 Games and wins lots of medals, it might just manage to imbue the logo with positive meanings and associations.  Ultimately, it could transpire that the logo comes to represent and embody a successful London 2012 Olympic Games, rather than being judged purely in terms of awful graphic design.  Of course, should the Games turn out to be a disaster, then the complete opposite happens, and the logo becomes permanently assigned to the cultural dustbin, though occasionally revived by comedians and ‘Worst of ...’ TV shows for kicks.

A bit ‘out there’ optimistic perhaps, but from a culturemaking perspective, I’m trying to think ahead to how the Games as a social construction 'could' possibly take shape.  I suppose this is rather akin to the way in which some brands go on to transcend the semiotic handicap of having a weak logo.  How do we think the Tesco logo would be received fresh off the shelf today for example?  I think the type font and dash underline is a prehistoric mess, yet many people have come to trust, respect and sing the brand's praises over time (that certainly doesn’t include me, but that’s for another post! ;)

So, perhaps the long term fate of the logo is largely in the hands of the British Olympic team and general success of the London 2012 Games.  Although this 'logo trauma' is already part of the Games' history, there's no reason why the logo's meanings should remain static.  History tells us that visual meanings can become transformed under different social conditions and contexts. 

One last question remains though: do we think that London would have been successful in its original Olympic bid had it not been for the (vastly superior) provisional London 2012 logo?  Clearly nothing can be less certain.  But I suspect the new logo would have impeded London’s chances.  Remember that ideas need to be represented in order to be conceptualised.  And the logo representation, in turn, will always shape how the idea itself is perceived and interpreted.  Perhaps the Olympic judging panel might have (subconsciously) felt that ‘yoof’ and graffiti aren’t such a great fit with the Olympic Games?  Perhaps.

Re-imagining Creativity Part II

[ IMAGE: A PHOTOMOSAIC OF VINCENT VAN GOGH'S 'A STARRY NIGHT' VIA ANDREAPLANET ]

Asi over at No Man’s Blog has put together a nice build on the general imitating and stealing idea that's implicit in Faris' blog, and one which I’ve also touched on myself (never to miss a philosophy gig!) to some degree here.  Since I wrote this post I’ve actually been pondering on what this all really means, so Asi has now inspired me to write a timely sequel and fine tune (or ‘re-imagine’) some of my earlier points.

To briefly recap then, taken to its logical conclusion, the idea implies that nothing is truly original, only ever a remake of something else.  Yet every act of re-imagining/remixing/ remaking – bricolage if you will – still requires a degree of personal vision and creativity, even if a person’s ability to think is always culture-bound.  Thus without jumping head-long into a structure-agency discussion here, re-imagination still requires people to act upon the original idea - they're not just passive dupes on a cultural re-production line.

Moreover, it feels like re-production and originality operate on different levels i.e. there is a difference between replication and re-appropriation.  And we can see this happening all the time on our virtual doorstop.  The Internet has generally fostered a 'cut n paste' culture, where ‘authorship’ has become meaningless or an insurmountable detective game at least.  But, for all the fanciful ‘death of the author’ theorising that goes on around these cyber-parts (hey, don’t look at me!) there’s still a harsh emotional reality when someone just comes along and takes credit for other people's work; especially if it’s work that people have given a lot of time and effort to.  I mean, goodness knows how schools and universities are able to keep tabs on plagiarism nowadays.  Not to mention those instances of blogger warfare that have been known to break out when someone doesn’t provide a link or reference to the original work (I recall a pretty heated moment a year or two ago involving someone who cut n pasted a PSFK post without any kind of acknowledgement).  Were they in the wrong?  Surprisingly, the commentary and feedback was actually quite mixed.

In any event, clearly we should also pay homage here to the great knowledge sharing and idea building culture that goes on all the time throughout the blogosphere.  Let’s take Faris’ brilliant Transmedia Planning post for example.  Ever the visionary, he realised the potential of extending Henry Jenkins’ work on Convergence Culture, which has since been further appropriated and theorised by the likes of Jason over at The Fruits of Imagination blog.  So, with a nod to Asi, this is clearly an example of Bakhtin’s ‘complex chain of utterances’ in action, but it still feels a little unfair on these ‘authors’ to say that they’ve just re-produced the work of others.  Clearly each ‘author’ has made a novel addition to the conversation in some way by weaving it together with another idea.

So, in a desperate bid to do my incremental duty, my halfway house exposé goes something like this: people’s thoughts and ideas are always subject to, and dependent on, the other thoughts and ideas that inspire and pre-exist their own.  Yet, people are still able to rearticulate, combine, and re-imagine these ideas in fresh and novel ways, which in turn allows them to extend and expand the body of cultural knowledge*.  So, contra Barthes, perhaps we're not 'dead authors' after all, but rather, something more akin to 'idea mixologists', that whilst never tangibly owning the content of ideas themselves, can lay claim to the idiosyncratic ways that existing ideas can be meshed together, represented, and ultimately, disseminated.

* Or, to use the parallel physical analogy, we can only make things in the world out of the materials and resources that already exist in the world.  Neither do the materials and resources decide the things that we make, nor do the things that we make ever come from new materials and resources that magically appear out of nowhere.

The potential of representation

[ IMAGE VIA SPELL WITH FLICKR ] 

Sometimes cultural theorists will talk about the ‘crisis of representation’.

Roughly speaking, this refers to the fact that it is impossible to represent any concept, idea or ‘thing’ without resorting to some form of representation, be it visual, verbal and/or audio, and that ultimately, this representation will influence how the ‘thing’ is perceived and interpreted, for better, or for worse. 

For example, not everyone cares about what they look like with regards to fashion (your dad or boss perhaps?), yet, like it or not, in part, they will still be judged by how they (re)present themselves.  Even the subject that I’m blogging about now is being brought into view by representation.  It’s being shaped by the design of the blog; the words that I am using to explain it; the medium on which you are viewing it etc. etc.

The upshot of all this for marketing is a rather worrying one: how do we successfully ‘represent’ our great ideas in all their HDTV, digital, Dolby-surround-sound glory?  If it fails miserably, how do we know whether it was the fault of the idea or execution?  Moreover, can a great idea make up for a poor execution?  And can a great execution make up for a poor idea?  And so the tension between strategists and creatives is born: “you’re not doing justice to my idea says the strategist” … “that’s because I’m working in a straight-jacket says the creative!”

You might be relieved to hear that it is not my intention to try and crack these questions here (that’ll errrr … follow in 2009!), but what I’d like to do is draw attention to the potential of representation.

For example, despite the retail cashier’s and e-tail sites telling you that this

just means “thirty five 'pounds' precisely,” I dare say that BBH and BA might be inclined to disagree.

Rather, we have

£35 of quick-dry iPod paint

£34 of blooming art nouveau

£39 of psychedelic-pop-surrealism

£49 of translucent glowing jelly

a £44 fluffy cloudscape formation

and a £40 swirl-tastic rollerball.  Well, kind of.

And as well as this nice TV ad, there’s also plenty of other outdoor BA pricing gems dotted around the urban landscape at the moment (well, throughout the London Underground at least), that might be of interest to the ardent design-enthusiast-cum-ad-spotter.

Taking a cue from my blog ethos above then (sidebar, top right), perhaps this helps to support my proposal that nothing exists outside of cultural representation; why strategy cannot be divorced from execution; and ultimately, why, if you ignore design, you do so at your peril.  But rather than viewing representation as a ‘crisis’ (those nihilistic postmodern pessimists eh!), why not (re)frame it as ‘potential’?

Sorry, I’m conscious that I’m turning into a bit of preaching sod that just tends to ‘blog at people’.  So please, cometh 2.0 interactionists, tell me I’m talking a pile of thingy, but remember to think carefully about how you ‘represent’ it first … I wouldn't want anyone to make the same foolish mistakes I do! ;)

Brand Britain

[ IMAGE VIA WIKIPEDIA / MICHAEL REEVES ]

I've been doing a fair bit of reading around national identity and place branding quite recently.

Here's a quote from Mark Leonard that I particularly like:

"[R]enewing Britain's identity does not mean inventing a completely new image of Britain or doing away with its heritage and tradition.  It means regalvanizing excitement around Britain's core values - as a democratic and free society in an interconnected world - and finding a better way of linking pride in the past with confidence in the future."

Sounds like wise culturemaking advice to me, and neatly ties in with this.

Perhaps nostalgic identity brands might also want to take note.

Much appreciated

Sorry for the lack of action around this part of the ‘sphere lately - had little time for ‘play’ unfortunately.  I must however, make time to get an accumulation of gratitude out of my system.

Thanks to …

Dino at Chroma for making contact last month, your blog is on fire at the moment by the way!

Richard and Fredrik for their kind words on this post – always nice to know that you've interested at least one person 'out there'.

Jon for including me on his March’s Top Blogging (and for running an extended list which allowed me to sneak onto it!) 

Dino, Fredrik, Jon, Scott and Gareth more generally for kindly adding Culturemaking to their blogroll (… how much is it that I need to send you guys through on PayPal again?) 

Not content with imposing myself on the plannersphere, my cyber-trawls have also taken me as far as the delightful designersphere, where David the Designer very generously sent me this wonderful book in the post

for errrr … basically scarring off his readers! 

As a cultural insight brand man, I don’t have a natural virtual residence as such, especially as there appears to be few semiotic-type bloggers out there.  So I'm very grateful that planning and design are willing to pitch up a tent for me. 

Warmly,

Marcus