John Winsor

A New Design

Thanks to fellow CPBers, Jiwon Lee, Scott Prindle and Jeff Benjamin for cranking out a new design for the blog. Our goal was to make it more aligned with Crispin's CI. Likewise, I'm working with so many great minds in the Cognitive and Cultural Radar Deparrtment. Look for new voices to start popping up on these pages going forward.

CP+B, The First 90 Days

It's been a little over 90 days since Radar has become part of Crispin, Porter + Bogusky. And, it's been one hell of a fun ride. Having the experience of selling a few companies before and going through post acquisition transitions, I was ready for at least a few hiccups. There have been none.

That's probably due to the fact that the cultures of both places, built on honesty, intensity, speed and hard work, are the same. CP+B is an incredibly entrepreneurial place. While it creates some manic energy it also has intensity around the creative process that is so necessary for anything great to happen. This place is truly focused on creating cultural change through marketing.

Every week the status quo is destroyed, to be replaced by the relentless evolution of ideas keeping it one step ahead of popular culture.

The journey continues.

What is Design?

Lately, I've been thinking a lot about product design and what it means. While CPB is known as an advertising agency, we've been creating pretty cool products for our clients for quite some time. Likewise, Radar was in the business of doing creative research around product innovation. So lately, I've been working on coming up with a new way to describe what we do, merging the CPB and Radar processes together. It's been an exciting and thought provoking process.

And, when I saw David Ngo's video, above on Expereince Curve it made me chuckle. The process of design is such a hard thing to describe and David has some fun with it.

Games versus Stories

Lately, we've been thinking about the evolution of storytelling in both advertising and product design. Certainly, the power of storytelling does a great job of connecting brands and people but it seems that the paradigm of storytelling is changing to one of gaming. Instead of the one-way conversation between storyteller and audience, gaming demands that both participate in an ongoing dialogue. If the audience stops participating the game is over. Mountain Dew seems to understand this shift with its new Game Fuel.

The iPhone

now this changes everything!

(written on my iPhone)

Radar People versus Gyroscope People

Fellow CPBer, German Dziebel, sent me this interesting note about how to catagorize people.

In 1950 sociologist David Riesman published a book with a paradoxical title The Lonely Crowd. He identified two kinds of people: inner-oriented and other-directed. Inner-oriented people followed their internal gyroscope, while other-directed people used a then-new powerful military gadget called “radar.”

Gyroscope people tend to follow tradition, they keep intact early childhood memories and grow up confident and often headstrong. Radar people are sensitive to the expectations and preferences of others. Radar people seek love, not so much respect. For the post-World War II U.S., Riesman predicted the submersion of gyroscope mentality and the rapid advancement of the Radar people with the corresponding rise of the importance of leisure, entertainment, consumerism, and creativity.

We are all very happy to be those Radar people. These two kinds of people may represent different business strategies that are equally appropriate depending on the particular time and place. Keith Biondo ponders, “Do [companies] navigate their way to survivability and prosperity by bouncing off you -- their customers -- providing anything and trying everything to that purpose? Or do they stay true to their gyroscope, their core expertise, offering select solutions, seeking to outflank economic privation by out-niche'ing the competition and becoming a long-term trusted partner to their customers?”

A company with a strong ongoing momentum may opt for the gyroscope strategy for it develops faster than the rest of the economy and tends to spawn its own loyal customers; a company going through a crisis has to be able to be flexible, somewhat flirtatious, and try different ways to respond to the demands of the customers.

The Greening of Best Buy

I just caught this on Core 77. It's wonderful to see a big organization like Best Buy be so innovative.

Best Buy will be the first major retailer of its kind and size to commit to mandatory green building for all its new stores beginning in mid-2008. The gadgets/gizmos giant is one in a group of companies, including Starbucks, Target, and Lowe's, participating in a pilot program for bulk LEED certification in association with the U.S. Green Building Council. There's no word on what level of certification Best Buy's shooting for (hopefully not the bare minimum dealie) but plans for eco-friendliness include, sustainable building materials, energy efficient lights, HVAC, and electronics, gray water recycling, and other implementations of renewable energy. Best Buy also plans to retrofit 20% of its existing stores with more efficient lighting while increasing recycling activity for cardboard, plastic, and consumer electronics.

Rob Reilly on Nightline

Check out ABC's Nightline segment on the connection between Burger King and The Simpson's. Fellow CPBer, Rob Reilly, has a nice interview talking about "The King" and the success of Burger Kings' advertising. Rob, Bill Wright and the rest of the creative team continue to do a great job of keeping "The King" culturally relevant.

Rob Walker Interview

Check out Rob Walker's, author of the Consumed column (I never miss it!) in the New York Times Magazine, interview with Core 77. Rob always has something interesting to say.

The Power of Fast

I have one constraint that I constently fight. Time. I never have enough. And, I get bummed when I have to wait. Airtight does a great job of illustrating this point.

So my main piece of advice, from a lifetime of using and building computer apps is - make it faster.

Make it smaller
Make it lighter
Sacrifice unnecessary functionality
Preload when possible

Give the user instance response. If you can’t do that, then at least give them instant feedback with some kind of front-end animation, and try to accurately indicate how long the user will be waiting.