DECEMBER 12, 2008

I think it’s safe to say that innovation doesn’t come from doing more of the same. Google and Procter & Gamble must have had a similar thought in mind this past year as the two companies paired up to exchange employees. For weeks at a time, employees from each company had the chance to get an insider’s view of how the other operates. The purpose of the swap: to learn more about each other and about targeting consumers.

Since the story surfaced last month, I’ve been thinking about this question: If I could spend a few weeks inside any company, which company would I choose? Tough decision - there are lots of great ones out there. And, while Trader Joe’s, JetBlue, Patagonia, and Threadless all made my honorable mention list, my top pick would be Toms Shoes.

• I’m fascinated by Toms Shoes because the company is centered around a simple product — and a much bigger purpose. Founder Blake Mycoskie’s one-for-one business model is very different than any approach I’ve ever seen - he built a business by selling shoes and, at the same time, giving them away. The company seeks to fulfill its philanthropic mission, while at the same time improving its products, mobilizing supporters, and building its brand into a cultural phenomenon. Oh, and did I mention it has all happened in a matter of two years? Impressive from a business and communications standpoint - but also inspiring to employees and customers alike. I think it would be amazing to stand square in the middle of what is, as Ben Mcconnell points out, a case study in consumer evangelism.

I asked a few of my colleagues for their thoughts as well - as you’ll see below, we all approached the opportunity from different angles.

• Corey: I’d pick government consulting firm Booz Allen Hamilton. Here at TMG Strategies we know that communications challenges are also substantive challenges – that it’s hard to execute successful public relations strategies without fundamentally altering the way that organizations operate. No amount of eloquent language or slick marketing tricks will get people to buy products or services that they do not fundamentally agree with.  As PR folks like us take increasingly-large roles in management, the kind of empirical, statistics-driven analysis done at firms like Booz Allen could teach us a lot about communications versus reality and how to marry the two. Plus, its Arlington office is less than 5 minutes from my house.

• Kristen: I’d like to swap with San Francisco based Sugar Inc. The Sugar Network is comprised of 16 distinct lifestyle and entertainment sites covering topics that include celebrity, fashion, food, politics and health (my favorite: Yum Sugar). I keep coming back to these blogs for the diverse content, conversational editorial style, and user-friendly design. Others must agree because the network gets over 8 million unique visitors a month. My current work involves looking at the changes going on all around us and determining how they might affect all aspects of communications, business strategy, and innovation. The editors at Sugar also have their fingers on the pulse of emerging trends and they serve up fresh content the way their readers like to get it. It would be a great swap because it is apparent that both of our companies have a healthy obsession with culture!

Every experience would, no doubt, be full of unique takeaways. What company would be at the top of your swap list? I encourage you to add your choice and continue our list via the comment field.

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DECEMBER 3, 2008

In the past few years, deoxyribonucleic acid (DNA) has become a hot commodity, saturating the fashion, jewelry and art worlds.  Indeed, from microscopic blueprint to trendy household commodity, the image of the double helix has permeated the consumer consciousness - not without implicit social consequences.

“Spit parties” like the one recently organized by 23andMe have become the latest social-networking craze.  Hereditary blueprints are now being turned into personalized perfumes and colognes.  For a perfectly accurate, 21st-century self-portrait, you can even map your – or your pets’ – genetic coding in a one-of-a-kind work of art that resembles columns of blocks.  All you have to worry about is which material – canvas, sheet aluminum or photographic paper – will look best on your living room wall.

It’s easy to say that personalization and narcissism are the forces driving this trend, but I do not believe those are the only forces at play.  In a sense, DNA-related products have become, purposely or not, propaganda-like tools for the health and pharmaceutical industries.

For example, orchestrators of the Personal Genome Project cannot steal your DNA while you’re sleeping at night, nor can they make you submit a sample against your will.  But what they can do is position their products and services so tactfully in the marketplace, and into the consumer consciousness, that we may actually find ourselves wanting to upload a DNA sample to a public database.  “The Perfect Unique Gift Idea for the Person who has Everything!”  DNA11’s tagline almost sounds like a subliminal advertisement from Huxley’s Brave New World or Orwell’s 1984, doesn’t it? 

Let me be clear: I’m not saying that our current DNA craze is the result of a premeditated, nationwide conspiracy (I don’t want to get arrested, you know).  But the fact that de-ox-y-ri-bo-nu-cle-ic acid has successfully made its way into the pop-culture marketplace can only better serve those individuals who seek it – and satisfy those companies that crave it.

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NOVEMBER 3, 2008

“…and I don’t know what to do, ‘Cause I’ll never be with you.” 

James Blunt obviously craves a meaningful life - and, like many others, he finds it through romance.  For the rest of us, all we really have to do is browse through the “Missed Connections” page on Craigslist.

Last week I read an article on CNN.com entitled “‘I saw you’ romance ads wildly popular.”  The author writes,

Craigslist, Kizmeet.com, ISawYou.com, SubwayCrush.com – these missed-opportunity matchmakers have become a staple of online modern love.  They’ve also become a way for some singles to fantasize about the people they’d like to meet and those they hope will want to meet them.

Mary Robertson, a documentary filmmaker in New York City, isn’t surprised by the appeal of the missed connection.  She’s been working on a film about the phenomenon for almost a year. “What inspires me about these ads is the density of the narrative,” Robertson says.  “The longing, the romance – all in this small space.  They’re like haikus.”

Blogger J. Stone at That’s So Fetch does not feel so inspired.  Stone writes,

Craigslist’s ‘missed connections’ gives soft-spoken people with a self-aware cowardice the chance to reconnect with a girl/guy they saw perusing the cereal aisle or the buxom blond who smiled back at them at the airport. . . . I would really like to know the average IQ of these people.  Instead of posting anonymously on the internet about some chick you missed out on, how about you work on your interpersonal skills?

One could certainly argue that the growing popularity of “missed connections” and “ambient awareness” is actually a reaction to social isolation – the modern American disconnectedness that Robert Putnam explored in his book Bowling Alone.

Indeed, have the internet and accompanying communications technologies actually made us feel lonelier than ever?  More socially inept than ever?  Are we purposely, purposefully - and, yes, perhaps cowardly - “missing the connection” in hopes of a fatalistic reunion on the internet?  Some believe fantasy love is better than real love, after all.

Ultimately, whether you admire or pity people who track down alleged “missed connections,” you have to admit that the appeal of missed-connection Web sites may indicate a shift in how people approach the search for love.

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OCTOBER 23, 2008

When I was 12 years old, the walls in my room were completely covered with New Kids on the Block paraphernalia. I memorized every word to every song on their albums, learned their dance routines, bought books about them, and here’s the most embarrassing one – I used to have a 6-foot-long, door poster of them and, sometimes, I’d sit dreamy-eyed in front of it and sketch their pictures on blank sheets of paper (I am laughing at myself right now; I don’t think I’ve ever admitted that to anyone). Plain and simple: I was obsessed with them. I had no shame then, and, apparently, I still don’t…

In early April of 2008, there were rumblings that the New Kids were reuniting after a 15-year break. Could it be?! After hours of scouring blogs and online news outlets, it was confirmed and, even better, they were doing it on The Today Show in New York City the following day. I had no idea that at 30 years old my feelings for the New Kids were still so strong, but “giddy” doesn’t even come close to describing what I felt. Surprising even myself, that night I jumped on the first train up to NYC, met up with my friend Lisa (a fellow TMGer), woke up before dawn to stand in the freezing cold rain outside the NBC studios, and waited for the New Kids to announce their big news. After 3 hours of misery and anticipation, they stepped outside onto the The Today Show plaza and announced that not only would they be reuniting, that their new CD would be out in September, and that they would be going back on tour. (If you look closely, there’s a shot of me and Lisa in the crowd.) Not only were we there to see them that day, we even got to meet them.

For the next six months leading up to their concert, I visited their new website several times a week for updates (and even signed up to receive news first). I TiVoed every interview of them on TV. The day their new CD was released I drove to several different stores to buy it when I could’ve just downloaded it on iTunes, and I even took off from work the day of the concert to prepare for my big night; a night I’d been waiting for, for over 20 years. The concert was everything I hoped it would be and more; they did not disappoint. I sang and danced like no one was watching, so much so that I lost my voice for an entire week! When I look back over the time and money I invested into these guys over the past six months, I’m amazed at the emotions they can stir up in me, and the loyalty that still remains.

At TMG, we believe we’re in the business of loyalty: helping businesses understand what it is that attracts and maintains loyalty with consumers. Some argue that loyalty no longer exists, that what appears to be loyalty is just convenience, familiarity, and/or coercion. And yet, there are some of us that still believe true-blue commitment to a brand, a business, and, yes, even to a boy-band from their childhood, still exists. I am living proof.

What do you think? Is loyalty a thing of the past or does it still exist?

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OCTOBER 2, 2008

Intellectual property hits the silver screen this Friday as Greg Kinnear stars in Flash of Genius, the true story of Robert Kearns, a Midwestern college professor/part time inventor who created the intermittent windshield wiper only to get into a patent dispute with Ford. According to the Patent Baristas, the main issue of contention was the uniqueness of the intermittent wiper:

Ford argued that Kearns’ patents were overly broad and therefore invalid…  Ford had contended the patent was invalid because the windshield system contained no new concepts. But Kearns argued a new combination of parts made his invention unique.

When I first heard about this movie, I was shocked that a studio would invest in a movie about intellectual property.  As the Patent Baristas say, “not too many movies have patent infringement as the major plot line.”

I think this goes to show that more people are starting to pay attention to intellectual property claims. Whether it’s patent issues with the Nintendo Wii, disputes between Tiffany and eBay or disputes between artists and the McCain campaign, these issues are out there and garnering public interest.

It will be interesting to see how the public views Ford following this release. Will people display apathy toward the difficult patent dispute or will this be a bad piece of PR news for the company?

According to Ford spokeswoman Jennifer Moore:

Ford sees no value in rehashing the history of a case that has already been resolved in a court of law almost 20 years ago.  . . .  It’s a movie.

However, the question remains to be seen if Ford is alone in this sentiment.

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SEPTEMBER 25, 2008

Television is not the medium it was even a mere year ago, and we are not the audience we were, either.  We are all evolving, television and us together.  But good Lord, into what?

That’s how Tom Shales opened his column in The Washington Post last Sunday.

One day later, Lana Sweeten-Shults with the Times Record (TX) added her own earnest evaluation of modern television.  Her focus, however, was on programming, as she wrote, “You have good TV.  You have bad TV.  And then you have a whole other genre called guilty TV, which is probably a subgenre of bad TV except that you cannot seem to look away, which makes it good TV, right?”

To me, justifying watching bad TV simply because it’s “addictive” is about the same as justifying smoking a cigarette because it, too, is “addictive.”  Viewing public, can we really not help ourselves?!

No, we can’t.  On September 11, the copycats at FOX aired yet another Americanized version of a popular Japanese game show: Hole in the Wall.  And, just as Sweeten-Shults described, despite the show’s cheesy, debasing awfulness - and the fact that it premiered on the anniversary of the most tragic day in America’s history - I could not help but watch.

If you missed the premiere (you are better off for it), the object of this bizarre cabaret is to twist your body into unusual shapes in order to squeeze through uneven holes in a fast-approaching Styrofoam wall.  If the contestants fail to fit through the cut-outs, they run smack into the wall and fall helplessly backwards into a deep, aquatic abyss – usually accompanied by a broken Styrofoam souvenir.  (Don’t worry – standing by are two shirtless, chuckling lifeguards who readily jump in after the fallen).

In the one-hour series premiere, 400-pound wrestlers challenged 100-pound equestrians in “Sumo Wrestlers vs. Jockeys.”  Afterward, an Italian family from the North took on a family from the South in “Spicy New York Meatballs vs. Sweet Georgia Peaches.”  The Sweet Georgia Peaches were all women, and all overweight.  (The show’s producers obviously think the chubbier, the funnier, right?)

I’m no xenophobe, but American re-makes of Japanese game shows, as guilty as I am for watching them, disturb me nonetheless.  For one, they make me feel like we’re all locked away in a zoo on Tralfamadore or some other alien planet, watching each other commit self-deprecating acts for the sake of E.T.’s perverted pleasure.  And, as long as it’s not us out there, it is okay for us to laugh.

So, why are shows like this so popular?  Hollywood Reporter explains:

“There’s the flashing lights, the dramatic music, the preening announcers, the competitors in loud colors serving up mounds of inane trash talk.  All of the ingredients are in place to drive home the point that the broadcast world continues to implode before our eyes.”

To my surprise (or maybe not), the show is actually a hit in several countries other than Japan and the United States.  Also tuning in are Argentina, Australia, Brazil, China, Colombia, Denmark, Germany, Hong Kong, India, Israel, Malaysia, Mexico, Russia, Sweden and Britain.

I believe John Doyle from the Globe and Mail best summarizes the reality of modern television programming:

How things change – on the anniversary of the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks, there is little evidence of the anniversary being marked on prime-time TV.  Instead, what’s in evidence is what the post-9/11 period has become – a time of escapism, frivolity and the glorification of singing and dancing competitions.

Flexibility, adaptability, metal acuity and physical dexterity in a fast-paced, ever-changing environment - ”Hole in the Wall” contains so many evolutionary undertones it might as well be called “Survival of the Fittest.”  Who knew, after all, that Social Darwinism could be so darn entertaining!

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SEPTEMBER 8, 2008

Regulators! Mount up!

Those are the lyrics I expected to hear as I sat down for lunch this past Thursday. I was about to enjoy a lovely dish of shish kebobs (I’m on an international food binge) when I heard the bass line to Warren G’s “Regulate”. It was the song all my high school friends couldn’t stop listening to.

The first thought that went through my mind is how cool this little Mediterranean café was for invoking such nostalgic thoughts. However, those thoughts led to confusion as I heard the lyrics that followed the intro:

I keep forgettin’ things will never be the same again
I keep forgettin’ how you made that so clear 

Those weren’t the dope beats from Warren G but instead the passionate prose of Michael McDonald. I realized I wasn’t listening to Warren G’s “Regulate”, but the song “I Keep Forgettin’ (Every Time You’re Near).”

It only took me a second to realize that Warren G’s song wasn’t entirely his original work, but used samples taken from McDonald. It’s become a common practice for musical artists to take samples from older songs and integrate them in their work. Eminem’s “Sing for the Moment” samples Aerosmith; Sean Kingston’s “Beautiful Girls” samples Ben E. King’s “Stand By Me”; and Nelly’s “Heart of a Champion” samples the NBA on NBC theme song.  Sometimes the most obscure samples are the best ones. Amy Winehouse will be using the Wizard of Oz in her next single, proving that nothing is safe from song sampling.

It’s grown to new heights with DJs like Greg Gillis (aka Girl Talk.) He creates entire songs completely out of samples. I can’t stop listening to his latest album “Feed the Animals.” The entire album is 14 songs made up of samples from over 300 songs. I think it’s a terrific album and I think everyone needs to download it (which you can do for free.) 

But here’s the issue at hand: when musical artists start creating songs using other artists’ works, when does it become copyright infringement? Some artists claim fair use, which isn’t a totally ironclad defense, and others point to various international treaties and conventions, but there are no clear laws that regulate song sampling.

What do you think? Is it an infringement of copyright to use a sample in a song? Where is the line in terms of sampling?

All I know is I’ll be listening to Girl Talk in the gym tonight- it’s the greatest thing since sliced bread.

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AUGUST 18, 2008

In and around Washington, D.C. you encounter tourists on a daily basis.  Whether on the Metro, walking around downtown, taking a tour of the monuments or going to souvenir shops, it is inevitable that you will run into tourists at any time of year.  Sometimes these individuals might be talking loudly and you have no choice but overhear some of these conversations.  And sometimes, those conversations are absurd, comical, or puzzlingly ignorant.  I should note, however, that it is not just visitors to the city that make some of these interesting statements.  Yes, on occasion even the city’s own citizens engaging in strange conversations.

When you hear something you think is too good to keep to yourself, you may call a friend or send a text. But today, I am pleased to inform you that there are better, more public outlets for all these befuddling statements.  For your pleasure, Eavesdrop DC  and Overheard DC  from DCist.  These sites/sections specialize in posting anonymous conversations that are too good not to share.  Whether the source is local or a tourist, these sites include up-to-the-minute reports of some of the city’s “best” offerings.  This is just another example of how anything anyone does in these hype-media times can (and probably will) find its way onto the internet.

What does this mean?

Be suspicious and cognizant the next time you are talking in public, because you never know when someone is waiting to post part of your conversation on the internet.  It could be that person standing next to you in line at the store, walking down the street, reading a book on a bench, or that guy looking at you and talking on his shoephone.

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AUGUST 6, 2008

Julia Allison is a bona fide celebrity icon – and I mean that in the truest sense of the word.  Unlike some of her infamous counterparts, Julia’s luminary status has been achieved without duping, disgusting or selling out to the viewing public.  And even though none of us actually knows Julia in “real life,” she is possibly more real to her fans than most of her fans’ Facebook friends are to each other.

Let me back up.  Four years ago, Julia was not much different from you and me.  According to her personal bio, she got her start as a columnist at Georgetown University (Class of 2004) while earning a “spectacularly unprofitable degree” in Political Science.  She then moved to New York City to become a writer, and, after being rejected from a job at Bath & Body Works, finally managed to convince an editor at the Manhattan newspaper AM New York to begin running her weekly dating columns.  This proved to be Julia’s “Big Apple” break.

For the past three years, to be sure, Julia has been living a writer’s dream.  Her columns have been published in Cosmopolitan, Maxim, New York magazine, The Huffington Post, Page Six, Marie Claire UK, Teen Vogue, Seventeen, Capitol File, and Men’s Health, among others.  She has made over 350 on-air appearances in the past year alone, including CNN, MSNBC, Vh1, Fox, E!, CBS, NBC, CW, FoxNews, FoxBusiness, Fuse, G4 and others.

Julia has a Facebook account, a Myspace page, a Flickr account, a Twitter address, a Friendfeed, four Tumblrs, three blogs, two Vimeos, one YouTube account and a photogenic white shih-tzu named Marshmallow.  Plastered on Julia’s social networking sites are complimentary quotes from popular media figures, including Michael Wilbon of ESPN’s Pardon the Interruption, who went as far as to call Julia “an American original.”

And it’s this label as “an American original” that makes Julia’s rise to stardom so incredibly fascinating.

In an earlier post I wrote that 21st century America has become saturated and polluted by phoniness, including: embellished social network profiles, fake blogs, and phony online diaries; performance enhancing drugs like anabolic steroids and amphetamines; fabricated memoirs like A Million Little Pieces and Love and Consequences; and even the questionable tear shed by Hillary Clinton.

However, what separates Julia Allison from this pack of wanna-be phonies is, quite simply, her authenticity.  Jason Tanz with Wired magazine likewise values the legitimacy of her celebrity, as he writes, “She’s not an actress or a singer or a misbehaving heiress to a hotel fortune.  She hasn’t recoded any meme-ready videos like Tay ‘Chocolate Rain’ Zonday or Tron Guy or the ‘Leave Britney Alone!’ dude.  She doesn’t flaunt tech knowledge like bloggers Robert Scoble or Dave Winer. . . . Allison is the latest, and perhaps purest, iteration of the Warholian ideal: someone who is famous for being famous.”

Moreover, to those who dismiss Julia Allison as little more than a rank narcissist, Tanz responds:

Admit it: you’ve spent a good half hour trying to pick out the most flattering photo to upload to your MySpace page.  You struggle to come up with the mot juste to describe your Facebook status.  You keep a bank of self-portraits on Flickr or an online scrapbook on Tumblr or a running log of your daily musings on Blogger.  You strategically court the gatekeepers at StumbleUpon or Digg.  You compare the size of your Twitter-subscriber rolls to those of your friends.  You set up Google Alerts to tell you whenever a blogger mentions your name.  See?  Self-promotion is no longer solely the domain of egotists and professional aspirants.  Anyone can be a personal branding machine.

In the end, Julia Allison may be a bona fide online celebrity - or a celebrated digital narcissist, as some claim - BUT, she is also just a girl, sitting in front of a computer, asking it to love her.  And, in that sense, we are all digital narcissists.

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JULY 28, 2008

With over one million copies sold on a wimpy $300 marketing budget, this 256-page tale of human sorrow and divine redemption is undeniably a literary and religious phenomenon.  But how did this happen?

Just over a year after it was originally published in paperback, William P. Young’s The Shack debuted at No. 1 on the New York Times trade paperback fiction best-seller list, and hasn’t budged since June 8.  Currently it is No. 1 on the Borders Group’s trade paperback fiction list, and, until recently, it was No. 1 on the Barnes & Noble trade paperback list.  Motoko Rich at the The New York Times says it’s “the most compelling recent example of how a word-of-mouth phenomenon can explode into a blockbuster when the momentum hits chain bookstores, and the marketing and distribution power of a major commercial publisher is thrown behind it.”

To summarize (but without revealing too much of the story): Early in the novel the young daughter of the protagonist, Mack, is abducted.  Four years later he visits the shack where evidence of the girl’s murder was discovered.  He spends a weekend there in a kind of spiritual therapy session with God, appearing as an African-American woman who calls herself “Papa;” Jesus, who shows up as a Jewish workman; and Sarayu, an indeterminately Asian woman who incarnates the Holy Spirit.

As intriguing is the storyline sounds, I’m not writing this post to encourage or even discourage you from reading The Shack – that’s entirely up to you.  But I’m curious as to why this book has become so popular so fast.  In other words, I want to know how we - the reading public - and even the author himself have turned this book into a best-seller.  I’ll offer five of my ideas:

1. It’s a quick read.  At 256 pages – a whopping 1055 pages fewer than the King James Bible – it’s no wonder that readers are drawn to a shorter rather than longer route to a cathartic encounter with the Christian God.

2. It’s cheap.  Foregoing the more expensive, hardcover version, Windblown Media originally published the book in paperback, making it approachable and affordable to everyone.

3. It’s bought in bulk.  In an effort to spread the word and share the love, many church leaders are asking bookstores for a dozen copies at a time – sometimes even a whole case – to distribute to colleagues, friends and family.  So, whether the book is digested in full or gathers dust on the bedside table, it counts as a sell.

4. It’s controversial.  Christian “feely-types” say it’s life-changing and will bring you closer to God.  Christian “thinking-types” warn that it’s subversive and will make you question the author’s intentions.  Sounds like it’s worth investigating for yourself, right?

5. It’s ambiguous universalism.  Beaner927 at the Closer to Free blog writes, “There were even parts of the book that almost seemed like they were meant JUST for me. . . . I got goosebumps!”  Inverse personalization?  Enough said.

Finally, I believe DHubka at the Thinking About Today blog has the most insightful rumination of all:

Why are so many people’s lives being changed by the book?  What can I take from the book and apply everyday?  I don’t know that there is anything. . .  I think it’s encouraging that this book isn’t life-changing for me, I think it means I’m already well on that path.

To be sure, with 40% of fickle - err, impressionable - American adults having changed their faith at least once since childhood, it’s no wonder The Shack is “changing lives.”  Today, it really doesn’t take much to become someone totally different than you were yesterday.

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