On Life Support: A Speech on Transformation Design

This is a ~13 minute speech I wrote on transformation design. There are slides and videos that accentuate certain points, but the speech stands on its own. I thought y'all would like a read.



For the last ten installments of the Star Trek series, Hollywood pitted the Star Ship Enterprise against renegade Vulcans, violent Klingons and a super enemy named Nemisis. Every trailer featured brooding and intense music. Every trailer featured aggressive dialogue and battle that took place during earth’s darkest hours.

That is until the producers of this year’s Star Trek XI made a different choice.

Filled with the hopeful sound bites from JFK and John Glen, a chest-inflating soundtrack and images of creation that take place on the eve of earth’s greatest adventure, the trailer for Star Trek XI invites us to do what no other trailer did before. Rather than invite us into a battle, it invites us to hope, to dream and to join in the creation of a new future.

Not twenty, not ten, not even five years ago could Hollywood have produced this perspective. Our culture had a much different mindset then.

But now, it’s choosing a new one.

Our culture is changing from a masculine orientation towards life to a feminine orientation.

A masculine orientation values control and stability. Its strategy is logic, force and aggression. It is focused on the individual and can only succeed if it defeats something.

But, a feminine orientation values creation and the dynamic. Its strategy is empathy, collaboration and nurturing. It is focused on the community and wins by helping others.

This choice appears in more than just Hollywood. In all aspects of life, people are choosing the feminine over the masculine.

We find it in politics. The most famous line in the last 20 years of politics is President George Bush’s pugnacious throw down: “You’re either with us or you’re against us.” But today, the most famous line in politics today is Barrack Obama’s collaboration affirmation: “Yes we can.”

We also find it in music. Four years ago, the music industry descended hell upon DJ Dangermouse for releasing his Grey Album – a mash up The Beatles’ White Album and Jay Z’s Black Album. Yet, Nine Inch Nails just released a DVD version of its Ghosts I-IV album containing all the data files of all their recordings. They’ve invited fans to remix and alter the songs as they choose.

We also find it in our learning choices. Once the official authority of information, Encyclopedia Britannica is no longer seen as such. Instead we find greater value in Wikipedia – a co-created wellspring of dynamic and motley information.

We also find it in technology. Fifteen years ago, TV remote controls had buttons - a function restricting our interaction with the TV to an either-or relationship. It dictated on or off, channel 3 or channel 15. Today, remote controls have a direction pad. A function inviting us to explore an environment where we could choose to engage, search, play, participate, explore or buy.

In work and leisure, in the political and the personal, individuals are reaching for the feminine people, the feminine things and the feminine experiences that enable them to shape their world.

In other words, people are reaching for support. In such a reality, Harvard Business School Professor Shoshana Zuboff and former Volvo CEO James Maxmin believe successful companies will not be those that sell to people but those that support people. Their tome, The Support Economy, argues that managerial economics and mass production relegates consumers to an end cog in the production machine. But as product quality dramatically rises across the board and the number of category players expands, people will increasingly demand more from companies than just a product. They will demand deep support in creating their ideal selves. In other words, successful companies will be those with a feminine orientation to their customers. They will be collaborators and nurturers supporting the individual in the creation of his or her desired life.

While it is easy to understand why we would not want to be treated as a cog in the machine, it is less clear why we need to surround ourselves with supportive companies.

It is because our lives are a constant struggle between opposing values. We may yearn to be adventurous, but each time the opportunity arises, we regrettably remain apprehensive. Or we may yearn to regain the optimism of our youth, but, upon surveying our life, find little to be optimistic about. It is these moments – when we find our personal faculties unable to render in our lives the values we desire – that we look outward. We look to the things around us – people, objects, experiences and even companies – that, whether through encouragement or empowerment, move us away from the values we fear and towards those we aspire. And when we find those things, we fill our lives with them.

If we survey the world of business today, we quickly realize the most culturally relevant companies with the most passionate customers have a feminine orientation:

• Facebook supports efforts to share information, develop relationships and develop communities.
• Method supports a desire for clean homes, clean environments, clean minds and clean fun.
• Scion collaborates with customers to create individual expressions of their personalities – whether it is through customized cars, customized graphics or customized music.
• Target helps customers design more beautiful lives.

The writing is on the wall: The companies that will thrive in our feminine future will not be those with a great sales pitch. It will be those with a great support system.

With culture and business changing to such a large degree, we have to wonder: Is the advertising industry keeping pace?

(To keep reading...)

Laws of Media

I stumbled across an interesting speech called “Enterprise Awareness: McLuhan Thinking” by Mark Federman. If you’re interested in predicting the future of media (in the McLuhan sense of the term) and their uses, read it.

Among other things, Federman discusses McLuhan’s Laws of Media: four aspects or effects that apply, without exception, to all creations – intangible or tangible, abstract or concrete – of humankind. Here they are:

First Probe: Amplify
Q: What does the thing – the artifact, the medium – extend, enhance, intensify, accelerate or enable?

Second Probe: Reverse
Q: When published or extended beyond the limits of it’s potential, the new thing will tend to reverse what had been its original characteristics. Into what does the new medium reverse?

Third Probe: Obsolesce
Q: If some aspect of a situation or a thing is enhanced or enlarged, simultaneously, something else is displaced. What is pushed aside or obsolesced by the new thing, the new medium?

Fourth Probe: Retrieval
Q: What does the new medium retrieve from the past that had been formerly obsolesced?

When applied to any “medium,” these questions help chart the medium’s story arc.

Federman uses email and intellectual capital as examples. But let’s try an example more attuned to our realm: brands – or more specifically, the conceptual construct of a brand.

First Probe:
Q: What does a brand extend, enhance, intensify, accelerate or enable?
A: The concept of a brand enables us to understand the intangibles in the relationship between a group of people and a company/product.

Second Probe:
Q: When published or extended beyond the limits of it’s potential a brand will tend to reverse what had been its original characteristics. Into what does the brand reverse?
A: The brand concept enables our ability to understand intangibles, but when we over extend our understanding of them we get lost in abstract ideas and esoteric language. In the end, we are unable to understand, with any clarity or precision, what is being discussed. We just nod our heads and resign ourselves to the misinformed notion that we are the only ones who don’t get it.

Third Probe:
Q: What is pushed aside or obsolesced by brands?
A: The product. Since a brand is an idea – which is often more interesting than a client’s product – advertisers want to make ads about the idea. Sometimes the product makes a cameo in the ad; sometimes it never appears.  In the end, image has become more important to marketing and business than product because of the assumption, “if they like the brand, the like the product.”

Fourth Probe:
Q: What does the new medium retrieve from the past that has been formerly obsolesced?
A: I’m sure to draw some ire from people, but it feels like branding retrieves the pagan rituals of past cultures. Specifically, branding draws upon the notion there exists invisible spirits that inhabit humans and influence their behavior. There is also the notion that if we surround the human with certain objects (ads) or get him/her to perform certain rituals (sharing, passing along an ad, interact with a site), we can control that spirit sometimes exorcising it (change brand perceptions), sometimes amplifying it (increase brand loyalty).

The Four Principles of Transformation Design

Ancient Roman Rostra drawing (via: dkimages) - a platform for orators to share ideas with a crowd.

Here are the principles that drive transformation designers. There are four of them:

Principle 1: Everyone is a designer.
Everyday, people make millions of design decisions - from choosing what to wear, to laying out a Facebook page to structuring an argument. Therefore, we treat everyone as a designer. Rather than acting as master designers who emerge from our black boxes to unveil our elegant solutions, we mediate diverse points of view and facilitate collaboration in defining the problem and prototyping the solutions. We create a neutral space where a range of people, whose expertise or point of view may have bearing on the problem, can work together.

Principle 2: Do then think.
While some people believe strategy is the entrance to imagination, we believe imagination is the entrance to strategy. Before committing to a strategy, we use existing research and insights as the platform for creative explorations. Doing so allows us to put intuition to use, to explore tangents and to discover opportunities only found in the creation process. As ideas that feel right pop up, we research them to make sure they are. As the right ideas pile up, the right strategy quickly emerges. You might know this as prototyping.

Principle 3: Create stories.
A transformation design system, like a story, is a system of experiences that build on each other to support the individual in his or her quest for personal change.

Principle 4: There is no finish line.
Change is not made; it is sustained. Without renewed energy and efforts, a transformed person can quickly and easily slip back into his or her old and less desirable state. Therefore, we understand our job is to both create experiences that incite the change and experiences that sustain the change. Our work has no finish line - only milestones.

The Creative Mind

On Creative People
Highly creative people have an independence of judgment.
They are questioning of authority.
They make fewer quick decisions, fewer black and white decisions.
They’re prepared to entertain irrational impulses.
They place great value on humor.
They cannot be rigidly controlled.

On Their Loyalties
Their first loyalty is never to the company, but to themselves and their profession.
They’re true to their own talent, their environment and its challenges

On Their Orientation to Problems
Their prime motivation is never money.
They simply spend all they can get and want more.
They are motivated by the task.
They work harder, longer without external pressures if the task attracts them and the environment excites them.
With the creative person, in the exploratory stages, there is great interest in the problem at hand, perhaps commitment to its eventual solution, but certainly not to any particular approach.

On Their Approach to Work
Creative people spend more time sifting alternatives not appearing to “get on with it.”
They make irregular progress.
Not step-by-step, but in unpredictable leaps.
This is lateral thought.
There is an open mindedness, a willingness to pursue leads in any direction, a relaxed and perhaps child-like, playful attitude that allows a disorganized, undisciplined approach to the point of putting the problem aside entirely.

On Their Judgment
Creative people are frightened of early commitment to an idea. (They are still sifting)
They need undisciplined exploration including artificial disorganizers such as drugs, alcohol, brain storming, games and anything but direct pressure.

On Managing Them
Management has to learn how to distinguish incubation from laziness suspend judgment from indecision boundary expansion from drunkenness.

On Their Big Ideas
Creativity is characterized by a willingness to seek and accept relevant information from any and all sources; to suspend judgment and defer commitment until The Big Idea.
Once finally arrived at, it is held to with bull-headed conviction and defended vehemently.
There is great conviction, dogged perseverance, strong ego involvement,
longing for praise and dogmatic support of the new way.

(Editor's note: I have no idea where that came from)

Fast Strategy

I love this mini-manifesto.  High Five Richard!

"The business world has little time for the desperately bright, painfully academic, socially inept and ponderous planner. 

"And the problem lies in part with the exalted position we have given strategy within our industry. We regard planners and strategists as tortured geniuses as they wrestle with the thorny issue of differentiating parity products in the yellow fats market and we wait for the white smoke to issue from the Vatican chimney to show that their work is done. Great strategy is utterly desirable but in the heat of the battle, utterly dispensable."

I wish I wrote half as well as he does.  

Making Stuff Without Making Stuff

“I was a producer of materiality and I am ashamed of this fact. Everything I designed was unnecessary... In future there will be no more designers. The designers of the future will be the personal coach, the gym trainer, the diet consultant.”  

Phillippe Starck, via PSFK.

This is an excellent transformation design quotation as it puts the emphasis  not on a beautiful object, but on the changed individual.  The product is the transformed individual.  It's reminds me of what Russell talked about forever ago: making stuff without making stuff. 

Phillippe made a great presentation at TED last year in which you can hear seeds of this POV on design:

Brew Some Good

Fresh off the heels of a post celebrating marketing's efforts to promote desirable values in the world, I offer a great example: Maxwell House's "Brew Some Good."  

Cheering "Here's to a world without bitterness," Maxwell Coffee promotes the legendary value of generosity.  

And more than simply promising their coffee will help you brew a generous spirit into your day, their marketing is performing it.  So far, they are partnering with habitat for humanity and giving away complimentary subway tokens.  My favorite so far is the good news section on the site since news is such pessimism-instilling crap most of the time. (Though I wish they would have launched with more content.  I'm sure there will be more coming though.) Nonetheless, I like the idea behind the efforts.

This does not rank as a transformation design example but it is a clear example of marketing promoting a value and inviting people to move towards it and embrace it.  

See Change Happen

The new blog of my eye is Nancy King's See Change Happen whose bi-line reads: "Thoughts on Using Design and Advertising to Create Positive Change."  Nice.

She posted the above image which wonderfully illustrates design as storytelling. 

1. It is unintrusive.  It takes a common, everyday behavior and injects new meaning and purpose into it. 
   
2. It is intuitive.  There is no moronic copy reading, "Every year America throws away 30 tons of paper towels.  That is the equivalent of 513 acres of rainforest destroyed every year." (Or at least I hope the teeny-tiny copy at the top of the dispenser doesn't read quite as on the nose.) 
   
3. It is interactive.  

"I Wish I Lived Life More Boldly"

August Saint-Gaudens’ Memorial to Robert Gould Shaw and The Massachusetts 54th Regiment is considered one of the greatest works of nineteenth-century American sculpture for its concentrated depiction of valor and determination.

Sorry for the relative radio silence over the past month. I’ve been cranking away on a speech about transformation design, which has consumed all my free time. Twenty-three drafts later, I have, what I think is the final draft. Though I’m sure I’ll still touch up some parts.

And since I’m always in a sharing mood, here is a new thought from my speech…

The gift of history’s greatest sculptors was to teach us that the physical world is more than it seems. That legendary values such as saintliness and strength, wisdom and warmth, can be found in a slab of clay or in a stretched cloth.

I point to sculptors because it is their shaman-like understanding and control of the physical and abstract that has influenced all other forms of creative expression. One need only look at Picasso’s nauseating “Guernica,” Dorthea Lange’s haunting photographs of the Depression Era, the simplicity of Max Miedinger’s Helvetica, the transcendence of Louis Kahn’s Salk Institute or the ferocity of Carroll Shelby’s Ford Mustang to understand that all creative minds merge the physical and the abstract to extol to the world, and therefore us, some of the most important values of our lives.

But it is when their objects embody, in a concentrated form, the values we lack personally but think worthwhile, we connect with them. We desire them. We acquire them. We choose to surround ourselves with them.

But why?

While it is easy to understand why we consider such values as courage and tranquility to be important and worthwhile, it is less obvious why we need objects around us to speak of those values.

It is because we need help.

Our lives are a constant struggle between opposing values. We may yearn to be adventurous, but each time the opportunity arises, we regrettably remain apprehensive. Or we may yearn to regain the optimism of our youth, but, upon surveying our life, find little to be optimistic about. It is these moments – when we find our personal faculties unable to render in our lives the values we desire – that we look outward. We look to objects that, whether through encouragement or empowerment, move us away from the values we fear and towards those we aspire. And when we find such objects, we fill our lives with them.

If it is selflessness we desire for our lives, we may acquire a beautifully crafted King James Bible that, acting as a workbook, teaches us to commit ourselves to something other than ourselves. We may, while walking through a gallery, be inspired by an iconic image of Martin Luther King Jr. and, upon purchasing it, hang it opposite our bed so that every morning we are reminded of the value we hope to embody that day and everyday. And our favorite pair of footwear may be a pair of TOMS whose commitment to donating one pair of shoes to a destitute child in South America for each pair purchased in the States reminds us that the smallest act of kindness can often create a disproportionately positive impact in the life of another.

Such a truth forces us to admit we are different people depending on the objects with which we surround ourselves. It’s only natural that we seek objects that help us be who we desire to be.

From this understanding, I’ve amended my previous definition so it now reads:

“Transformation Design is the development of a system of activity that helps people render in their lives the values they desire so that how they think about and experience the world is positively changed.”

This definition of transformation design is even more John-Q-Public-centered and even less tactic dictating. Awesome. Furthermore, by using the world “help,” it speaks to the cooperative (a.k.a. interactive) effort - people and companies – required to create change.

***

For years, advertisers, like great sculptors, have shown clients that a legendary value such as creativity is found in their computer, fortitude in their sports drink, freedom in their cigarette and discipline in their corn flake.

With mass media, they invited the larger public to understand and take action towards these worthwhile values. With memorable taglines such as “It let’s me be me,” they encouraged people to pick up a bottle of Clairol and live life more genuinely. With iconic images such as a 1988 Michael Jordan frozen in mid-flight, they challenged people to purchase a pair of basketball shoes and live life more boldly.

Transformation design is the performance of the advertising’s promise. While advertisers see the purchase of the basketball shoes as the finish line, Transformation designers see it as the beginning. Transformation Designers understand that when a person purchases the basketball shoes, they, through their actions, say, “I wish I lived life more boldly.”

Making Life Better

Clearly I'm the last one to look at this excellent presentation from Paul.  But in case you haven't either, take a look.    

Brand Utility Examples

This is a call for help:

Could y'all send me what you think are the best or most interesting examples of brand utility? 

Thanks in advance.     

Super Normal Design

The ordinary white plate.  A staple since...ever.

Interesting thought from Idris Mootee on noticeable design vs ordinary design:

"Too many designers try to make their work seem special by making it as noticeable as possible. The historic purpose of conceiving things that are easier to make and better to live with has been side-tracked," he says. "The objects that really make a difference to our lives are often the least noticeable ones, that don't try to grab our attention. They're the things that add something to the atmosphere of our homes and that we'd miss the most if they disappeared. That's why they're 'super normal.'"

As he points out, many people do find ordinariness an attractive quality in their objects. Not everyone wants to be noticeable.

You could conclude that noticeable design is more of a marketing tactic than a necessary ingredient in creating change.

Transformation Design Watch: Oprah & "A New Earth"

This Transformation Design watch comes from the guy the girls go crazy for, Jason Oke.

It’s about Oprah’s book club. Jason writes:

“The latest book being promoted and discussed in her famous book club is Eckhart Tolle’s “A New Earth” - a spiritual treatise on being conscious and present, quieting the chattering of the mind, and losing our association with the ego to become connected with the energy of the world around us. It’s heady, new-agey stuff, and as Tolle himself says in the book it will either change your life or you’ll find it a pretentious, aimless ramble (personally, I’m a fan of his stuff). As with most of Oprah’s previous book selections, it’s shot to the top of the best-seller lists for the past month.

But what’s interesting is that Oprah’s taken a new turn with the book club and is hosting a series of 10 weekly webinars with Tolle to discuss, chapter by chapter, the contents of the book. They’re 4 weeks into it now, and each one has drawn as many as a million people live, from around the world, making them the largest webcasts in history. A further 1.5 million people a week have been downloading the webcasts afterwards on iTunes and from Oprah’s site.”

This is transformation design with an education arc. New subject + Textbook + class + teacher + students.

As, I’ve mentioned before, storytelling is the metaphor for Transformation Design. An example like this makes me wonder if there are “plots” to transformation design ideas. After all, plot means a plan to accomplish some purpose.  The Oprah example would be an “education plot.”

Transformation Design Watch: Hema

While I’ve been a “bit” tardy on posting, Petar Vujosevic has continued the transformation design hunt. Here’s what he’s found:

Hema, a dutch department store, has halved the sickness and absences. Employees must nowadays "call in sick" online, where they must fill out a questionnaire directly.

Online "calling in sick" raises the psychological threshold according to the inventor of the system. From six up to sixty questions are asked online and the employee must still ring his boss who have the sickness report already in front of them. The boss does not get to see the answers given in the questionnaire, but he does build up files so that patterns can be detected.

Here are Petar’s thoughts:

“The reason I find this example so interesting is that it is not about making something easy (as the majority of TD examples so far), but making stuff more difficult in order to be better. Complexity actually is intended, much like a bank vault, or the way casino's are designed to keep players in house.”

My additional thoughts:

One of the core criteria for TD is that it creates a positive value change in people to create a positive financial change in companies. People either go from a negative value (ex: isolation) to a positive value (ex: acceptance), or, sometimes, from a positive value (ex: acceptance) to doubly-positive value (ex: honored).

This Hema example creates a positive value shift in employees: from dishonest (negative value) to honest (positive value).

By and For the People: Adweek Article

Good article from Joe Duffy on why the democratization of design is a good thing.

By and for the People
March 10, 2008

How did design get so popular? Why has every business from Procter & Gamble to the corner restaurant decided that design is going to help them connect to a broader audience? There's something going on here, and everyone wants a piece of it, but I think many are missing the real reason this change is taking place.

Design's power lies in its fundamental purpose, making something better -- an experience, a product, a message, a cause. We're seeing that purpose utilized today in the way products like the iPhone and the Mini are changing entire business categories. We're seeing it in the way better products and services are identified, packaged and presented to their audiences?not only to look better, but to be better -- for you, for the environment and, yes, for the bottom line.

The best advertising agencies have realized design's power for years. They've made it part of the creative process and brought it to bear on how brands are brought to market. Today's enlightened marketers realize that until you've quite literally created the brand through the best product, identity and packaging, you are in no position to advertise it. Hopefully the days of adding design at the end of the process -- a prettier package at the close of a "brilliant" 30-second TV spot or just the right logo to sign off a print ad -- are fading fast.

Design, in its broadest definition, is not just another way to market a product or a new version of advertising. Design is a way to create a more meaningful existence, a way to transform a mundane lifestyle into one that separates one person's life from another's. Design can change the way we look at the world as well as the way the world sees us. It's a way of leading a unique and individualized existence, a better life.

We live in a time when the range of choices is absolutely staggering. Virtually anything that's created in this world that could bring us what we want in life materially is at our fingertips. Technology has given us this range of choices, as well as filtering devices that allow us to focus on those products and services that will help us to design our lives. From our kitchen knives and toothbrushes to our children's education, from the houses we live in to the way we entertain our friends or plan "once in a lifetime" vacations, the ability to make all aspects of our lives more meaningful is what design is all about.

The companies out there that embrace this cultural phenomenon are providing their audiences with a way to experience their brands in a personal way. Nike lets us design our own individual sneakers. HP allows us to create a truly personal computer. Levi's helps us customize the fit of our jeans. Mini gives us the kit of parts to make our car, ours alone. And the Bahamas invites us to design the ultimate family vacation experience on its Web site. As business comes to realize that people want to design their lives, the real democratization of design will take place.

Our industry has evolved from marketing through metaphors that suggest an experience an audience might desire to offering the audience the ability to make that experience their own. Creating and reinvigorating brands with this in mind will be the difference between success and failure in the new world of marketing.

The key is collaboration. Not only with those who can help us create a total experience -- professionals from advertising, design, architecture, product development, media, etc. -- but most importantly, with the audience we're trying to attract. They know what they want, and they're the creative resource we need to depend on to help us design brand experiences that will truly change their lives. What's required is an "open-source" dialogue that invites the audience into the creative process. The more they can relate to how designers and creative people think and work, the more they will appreciate breakthrough creativity and accept new ideas. They are, after all, the ultimate client.

I know this open-source point of view concerns some designers. It's the fear that the "amateurs" will take over much of what we hold dear. But consider my newfound love of golf. I began golfing eight years ago, and now I have a genuine appreciation for what Tiger Woods does. Believe me, he is not concerned about me as a competitor. Nor do I believe that the way he and I golf is anywhere near the same in terms of process or end-result; nor will it ever be. (Damn.)

When design becomes an important part of our culture, appreciated and practiced by many, at many different levels, as it is in Japan, those who practice design as professionals will find true respect and, more importantly, an engaged and grateful audience.

So cheers to the design era. And with it, a challenge to all involved in branding and marketing that truly understand and embrace the reality and substance behind it.

I'm Getting Bored of Facebook; Facebook and the Invasion of the Crap Apps

Yes, he's tone deaf. But he does make a good point. Facebook is exploding, and in doing so, polluting itself with irrelevancy.

IQ Tests, Brain Tests, Hot or Not, Sexy or Cute, Superpoke, Which Color Are You?, Which Celebrity Are You?, Traveler IQ Challenge, Growing Gifts, Movie Quiz, Style Slam, Graffiti Wall, Notes, Water Globe Gifts, My Heritage, Are You Normal?, Fun Wall, Who Is Your One True Love?, Chocolate Fantasy, Fashion Fortune Cookie, How Horney Are You?...
As I've written before, when a person encounters anything in the world, they seek to answer two questions through interaction with the artifact:

1. Is this meaningful to me?
2. Is this useful to me?

Facebook was once wonderful at this and why, I think, it exploded. Facebook offered students (its initial users) the information they wanted to know: who their friends' friends were, the interests of people they wanted to meet, ways to find out about parties or events, photos of their friends, what their friends were up to at that moment, etc.

But now Facebook is rapidly losing its value.

The site is polluted with "crap apps." And, as this video and a quick search for member groups shows, people hate it. Crap apps produce "information sewage" - meaningless and useless information - and dump it into the once crystal clear and desirable pool of information. I don't care to know how horny you are. A fashion fortune cookie is as about as informative as Miss Cleo was. You gave me a roll of toilet paper as a gift? Huh? That doesn't even make sense.

Crap apps are also space-hogging and visually-accosting additions to a once clean, streamlined profile page. I mean, good god, they even have a graffiti app that lets you spray paint graffiti on someone's profile. The only app that could scream "We're polluting your profile" more is one that actually let's you dump refuse and pump CO2 and other toxic substances into your friend's profile. It would be called "The Exxon Valedez" app.

Facebook has transformed from a lovely utility letting you share information with the people who matter to you into a marketplace of applications.

And they are suffering for it.

Transformation Design Watch: Tom's Shoes

I had the pleasure of grabbing breakfast with Blake Mycoskie a few weeks ago. In addition to being a great guy, Blake is the founder of another example of transformation design: Tom’s Shoes.

Here’s the story:

During his travels through South America, Blake noticed many of the children weren’t wearing shoes. His first reaction labeled this as a cute characteristic of their culture. However, he later found out this was a characteristic of poverty and a serious health issue. Blake wanted to help.

Inspired by the simple design of a traditional Argentine shoe, Blake started Tom’s Shoes to, in his words, make life more comfortable for people around the world.

While the shoes are unique, the business model is the true piece of design: every pair of shoes you buy, Tom’s will donate a pair to a child in need on your behalf. His design amplifies and dimensionalizes the individual action of buying.

Of course everyone thought he was crazy when he committed himself to this model. A year later, Tom’s is one of the fastest growing shoe companies in the world. Demand decimates supply. Everyone is buying. Everyone is talking.

In fact, here is the pair I bought:

(Yes, I know. I’m kinda preppy.)

Tom’s is an interesting example of transformation design for a couple of reasons:

#1 Most of the examples in the transformation design catalog are objects; the example here is the business model: buy a pair, give a pair.
#2 It’s what I’ll call a “sling transformation.” Just as a Sling Box moves content across geography to deliver it to another recipient device, so too does a “sling transformation.” Activated by a person in America, the transformation does not happen to the buyer. Instead it is delivered to and happens to a child in-need.

A couple of other notes about this example.

I’ve mentioned before storytelling is the metaphor of transformation design. Like a story, transformation design allows people to step into new experiences, be challenged by them, learn new ideas or behaviors from them, participate in them and share them with others.

Tom’s Shoes is a proof point to this idea. It is a piece of design inspired by story; it teaches you about the world through story; it invites you to participate in and share its story. At every touch point the company offers what I call an “access point” – an opportunity for a person to access the story and become a role player in it:

(access point: top of the packing)(access point: top of the packing)(access point: labels)(access point: the actual product)

I Worry That Ad Agencies Have the Wrong Understanding of Design.

I’m encouraged when I read things like this:

“The growing emphasis on design at the front lines of communicating the ‘big idea’ is the reason agencies and design recruiters from Aquent, The Creative Group, 24 Seven and Gale Executive Recruiting said the designer's star is on the rise…”

“’Design is migrating up to the strategic level,’ said John Winsor, head of design at MDC Partners' Crispin Porter + Bogusky, in Boulder, Colo., where the network has three dedicated designers, two strategists and a business analyst -- double the size of the design department two years ago. ‘It goes along with getting the product and the brand narrative right,’ Winsor said.

I’m less encouraged when I read things like this from the same article:

“The desire to imbue all touch points of integrated campaigns with a common aesthetic is leading to a design boom at many top, traditional shops.”

“’Advertising is following the lead of design in a weird way,’ said John Butler, partner and ecd at Butler Shine Stern & Partners, Sausalito, Calif. ‘We believe that design is branding. It starts there before advertising and controls the look and feel of it,’ said Butler.”
(my bolds)

The purpose of design is not decoration. While part of its intent is to make things beautiful and desirable, that is not its purpose.

The purpose of design is to create action.

Design doesn’t make a room pretty. It creates a certain aesthetic that makes people feel differently and therefore behave differently. Employees do not behave the same way at Crispin as they do Y&R.

Design doesn’t make a product prettier. It makes it easier to use, more intuitive. The Apple iPod is superior to the Sony Walkman HD for this reason.

Design doesn’t make pretty outfits. It creates costumes that temporarily change the role we play in our daily lives. Women don’t act the same way in a business suit as they do in lingerie.

Design doesn’t make information prettier. It makes it more digestible, which leads to learning and conversations.

Design doesn’t make pretty objects or pretty pictures. It creates artifacts that change the way we see, think and talk about the world and often times change what we do and how we do in it.

Design isn’t pretty. Design is action.

If agencies want to utilize it properly, design cannot be tacked on at the end the development cycle to make everything look cohesive and good. Design must be applied from step one.

War v. Story

As we all know, the war metaphor dominates the way people talk about and approach marketing:

Officers lead us. We have briefings. We explore territories seeking our best positioning. We bunker in war rooms to develop objective-satisfying strategies. We kill ideas that don’t work. Eventually, we launch campaigns filled with disruptive tactics targeting an identified group of people we’ve been tracking. We put insertions and guerilla tactics “into the field.” We battle it out with our rivals, and, if all goes according to plan, we capture the public’s attention and seize market leadership.

But some may not realize this metaphor represents the biggest challenge transformation design faces in becoming an accepted and widely practiced discipline in marketing.

On one hand, the metaphor marginalizes transformation design. While the emerging discipline is committed to the heroic activity of creating positive changes in people, it can, when placed in this dialogue of war, seem frivolous and Pollyanna. Some people may, and do, quickly dismiss it as a distraction from marketing rather than a way to conduct it.

However, the biggest challenge is this:

If transformation design is to flourish, marketers must drop the war metaphor in
favor of the metaphor offered by transformation design: storytelling*.

This is a tough sell. Old habits die hard. But discussion must be made around the fundamental difference between these metaphors and the ripple effect each has on their approach to marketing. IMHO, these are the differences:

(*I am not the first to promote storytelling as a new metaphor for marketing activity. Nevertheless, it always bears repeating.)

Let’s explore each a bit more (and pardon my rambling):

1. Competition-Driven v. Value-Driven
“Waging War” is competition-driven. You need to beat the enemy to succeed. In marketing, you seek to capture more of the available resources (customers, attention, shelf space, share of voice, share of wallet, etc.) than your competitors do. Decisions are made to the question, “Does this give us an advantage?”

“Storytelling” is value-driven. Stories are tools for living: they orient us, teach us and expand our minds, our understanding and our sympathies. Likewise, transformation design creates tools and activities that positively change people. Decisions are made to the question, “Does this benefit the person?”

2. Control v. Variability
“Waging War” embraces control. Much like generals run war games before real-life attacks to reduce variables, risk and the unknown, marketers test the ever-living shit out of concepts, messages and positionings for the same reason. By tightly controlling public presentation and a person’s experience with the executions, it is thought, a company can control public perception.

“Storytelling” embraces variability. Every story is comprised of core characters following a core trajectory to arrive at a core lesson. Storytellers often adjust the details of each to ensure the story resonates with the audience and affects them. Likewise, transformation design recognizes variability is key to ensuring change is created in people. Different people attain change in different ways. Therefore, the secondary purpose (primary being to elicit change) of transformation design programs is to offer a core trajectory towards an end change while accommodating desired variations to that path.

3. Command v. Guide
To “Wage War” is to command. Just as generals command their troops, marketers command people – or at least try. There is an unspoken belief among them that “if you advertise it, they will come.” Hence the use of the “call to action” copy line which is written, in grammatical terms, as a command: “Go…,” “Try..,” “Visit…,”

To “Tell a Story” is to guide. Guiding is a cooperative action: I suggest, you choose. From that POV, storytellers present their audience with an opportunity to learn and evolve, but it’s up to the audience to choose to do so or not. Likewise, transformation design presents people with an opportunity to create positive change, but it’s up to them to choose to do so or not.

4. Destruction v. Transportation
“Waging War” is concerned with destruction. Destroy fortifications, decimate an army and deplete it’s moral. Marketing destroys a person’s sense of comfort, satisfaction, confidence, beauty, happiness, etc. To sell a product, it is thought, a need state must be created.

“Storytelling” is concerned with transportation. It moves you to places beyond your daily rut to teach you new things. Likewise, transformation design moves you beyond your typical behaviors so that you may experience/learn new things.

5. Conquering v. Teaching
“Waging War” is the act of conquering. In marketing, you capture attention, captivate people, conquer new categories, own colors/words/ideas/markets…and so on.

“Storytelling” is the act of teaching. In transformation design, help people learn new behaviors.

6. Expand v. Transform
The goal of “Waging War” is to expand. To take as many resources from competitors as you can. Just as the goal of war is to expand one’s power, influence, riches, territory, the goal of marketing is to expand the exact same things.

The goal of “Storytelling” is to transform people. Just as the goal of storytelling is to offer people something of such psychological value that it transforms the way they see the world, the goal of transformation design is to offer people something of such emotional and functional value that it transforms the way they behave in the world.

7. Disrupt v. Align
“Waging war” encourages disruption. Disruption is to disorient opponents so that they more vulnerable to attack. Marketing makes fine use of this as a popular how-to book was written on the subject and a huge agency network was built around it.

“Storytelling” encourages alignment. Since the goal of story is to transform a person, storytellers work to ensure the audience sees themselves in the story – through identification with a character, situation or theme. Likewise, transformation design seeks to better align companies’ marketing activities the hopes and desires people have.

8. Force v. Curiosity
“Waging War” uses force to achieve its goals. To delivery such a punishing blow that one’s defenses cannot resist. In marketing terms, this “push” technique is popular among media people who create marketing plans to deliver a punishing blow of high frequency, repetitive messaging that surrounds a target in a 360* fashion. Escape is futile.

“Storytelling” uses curiosity to achieve its goals. Great storytellers make people curious. “What’s this character going to do?” “How will she respond? “Who was the shadowy figure?” The audience invests more emotion, energy and thought into the story because they want to learn. A “pull” technique if you will. Similarly, transformation design creates experiences so beneficial people seek them out and invest time with them.

9. Delivery v. Discovery
“Waging War” is about delivery. In war, think missile delivery. In marketing, think, message delivery. Both are actions whereby an object/idea is given to people.

“Storytelling” is about discovery. Lessons are rarely explicit and more often implicit in stories. The audience has to discover the idea. Likewise, in transformation design, a new behavior cannot be given. It must be worked for.

***

Now I don’t know if all these are right or if I described them properly. But they are interesting to think about.

I do know, however, the war metaphor, which admittedly did serve the industry well for a long time, has got to go. Not only is it a hinderance to transformation design's acceptance, “War” is not indicative of the relationship people want to have with companies.

Transformation Design Watch: Farming

Transformation Design Watch: Square Watermelons

This example comes from Rad Tollett, senior strategist at The Martin Agency.

He suggests that “square watermelons = transformation design.” At first, this didn’t square up with me. (Pun intended). But, upon reflection, it might be one.

Though watermelons grow in southern Japan, the juicy fruit is at odds with Japanese culture: it is a fruit that is gluttonous with space in a culture that is economic with its space. This suggests sales of watermelons are slow – though I have not seen any data proving this. But for now, let’s assume sales are slow.

The Western response would have been, “Let’s advertise the shit out of these fruits and launch a big PR campaign so the fruit transcends the culture’s space issues. Let’s make people desire the nutrition and taste of the fruit more than they do their refrigerator space.”

The Eastern response, a more design-centered response, was to change the fruit. It’s a simple solution: grow the melons in a small box.

“The square boxes are the exact dimensions of Japanese refrigerators, allowing full-grown watermelons to fit conveniently and precisely onto refrigerator shelves.”

It should be noted that a square watermelon costs 10,000 yen, the equivalent, at the time of the 2001 article, of about $82. Regular watermelons at that time costs $15-$25.

What do y’all think?

UPDATE: Paul Isakson made a compelling argument as to why the square watermelon is not an example of transformation design:

"It's kind of like how all the pop (Coke or soda) companies switched their 12-packs over to 2x6 (from 3x4) to more easily fit in the fridge. The watermelon was still a watermelon, only now it fit in your fridge better. The watermelon was still for eating."

It true, the square watermelons create no real or positive change in the individual buyer's life. Nor did they change how people interact with a watermelon. The watermelon is still the same thing, offering the same activity (eat it). It's just a different shape.

Design's Affect on Marketing: Finding the Idea, Not Giving It

Joris Laarman's "Bone Chair."
On display at the MOMA's newest exhibition, Design and The Elastic Mind.

Many people, like Jason and I, think design is the future of marketing. But how?

Well, to explore this, let’s talk about message communication specifically.

Advertisers create two kinds of communication: declarative and insinuative.

Declarative advertising, the more American style, works like this:
(Print ad for Citi Identity Theft Solutions. Copy reads, "It didn’t seem right to us either. You’re a 68-year-old retired accountant from Utah so we thought it a little odd that you’d spend $282 at the Screaming Needle in Hollywood. With Fraud Early Warning, Citi can recognize unusual spending and stop it. It’s all part of Citi Identity Theft Solutions. Helping make things right when other try to make things wrong. That’s using your card wisely.”)

It tells you what you are looking at and the message you should walk way with. It invites you to simply “remember what you saw here.” It’s a bit like sitting in a lecture.

Insinuative advertising, the more British style, works like this:

(Print ad for Jokyo paper clips.)

It is “half-baked.” It doesn’t spell the message out for you. Instead, it implicitly invites you to fill in the blank. It’s a bit like color by numbers.

Designers also create two kinds of communication: embodied and afforded.

Embodied communication works like this:

(This was a print ad for mini promoting is customizable Minis.
The stencil allowed you to design you own mini.)

These are not so much ads as they are activities. What you see is the endpoint. You are invited to make the reverse journey to find the message, the starting point, by engaging the object in some way.

Afforded communication works like this:

(Print ad for MUJI showing homes on the Mongolian prairie.
Japanese characters read "MUJI.")

What you see in this MUJI ad is not so much an ad as a canvas for your interpretation - a conscious decision of the part of its creator. (Apple iPod ads are the Western equivalent.) Afforded advertising means to be provocative, not directive. Complex in meaning, rather than simple. Generative of feelings, rather than rational thought. You are invited to articulate what the ad makes you feel. The ad has no meaning except what you put into it.

All that said, IMHO the main difference between the advertiser’s approach to communications and the designer’s approach is this simple:

Advertisers give people the idea and ask them to remember it. Designers give people tools and activities and ask them to discover the idea.

That’s a BIG difference with BIG implications.

Brands Do Not Exist Except on the Side of Cows

For those of you who think a brand is a collection of everything associated with a company or product, allow me to provide a visualization of your argument.

Good luck with that.