Archives for April 2012

Some presentation advice from Pete Townshend:

Pete has said many things about performing, but there is one thing he said way back in 1964 that has stuck with me for the past three decades:

“The audience is thick and doesn’t appreciate quality, no matter how hard you try. You do something big on stage and a thousand geezers go ‘Ahhhh!’” – Pete Townshend

And he’s right. I am, if I do say so myself, a pretty good bassist. I spent countless hours learning new techniques and ways to play. But no matter how hard and complex my playing, the audience (more often than not) simply didn’t care about triplets and arpeggios. It was only when I ran around on stage, acted crazy and jumped all over the place did they take notice. I witnessed this hundreds of times and the results were always the same. I could have played like crap, but because I was entertaining, people would come up to me after a show and say, “You are an amazing bass player!””

This probably goes a long way to explaining the digital marketing charlatans running loose in the world. But I find it useful to keep in mind as I can get a little Steven Wright when presenting if I’m not careful.

(Via IHAVEANIDEA, HT John)

Diagramming Sentences:

 

These diagrams are from a recent post over at The Opinionator about the curious art of diagramming sentences, invented 165 years ago by S.W. Clark.

(via @bobulate)

 

(Via swissmiss)

http://kevinrothermel.com/blog/537/

Target and the Threat of Free Riders:

Target is getting nervous, for the first time in a while. Some Target shoppers are browsing comfortably in the company’s high-design stores, then closing the deal on-line with a lower-priced vendor. It’s enough of a phenomenon that CEO Gregg Steinhafel recently penned a letter to his suppliers with a competitive battle cry: “we aren’t willing…to let online-only retailers use our brick-and-mortar stores as a showroom.”

As someone who has been doing this for years, mostly in bookstores, there’s no question in my mind that retailers need to start thinking about this forth dimension of the retail experience. There’s always going to be the danger of being undercut by price, but I bet a lot of the hemorrhaging can be stopped just through implementing a mobile shopping experience that accompanies shoppers throughout the store. Build an ecosystem that improves people’s experience, help them find things, lets them scan barcodes for price and further information. Do something useful. Do something good. Problem solved.

(Via HBR.org)

Needs and Gratification Theory and Game Genres:

In part 1 of the Extra Credits series the authors argue that the whole way we look at genres and sub-genres is inherantly flawed:

Most of the time when we talk about what makes a game belong to a certain genre we only talk about surface elements. The visible mechanics or dynamics of a game. This game is an RPG because it has a leveling system. That game is a first-person shooter because it has guns and a first-person camera. That other game is survival horror because there are zombies in it. But what we really outght to be looking for are the underlying reasons why we play a genre.

…Genres in all things are actually defined by what the audience desires to get out of interacting with them. We go to a romance for different reasons than we go to a comedy or a drama. We can identify a romance by the emotions it tries to invoke in us, not by its editing styles. And the same is true of games.

Let me ask you: Why is it we thnk of Mass Effect as an RPG even though its combat is built around third person shooting? Why are we so confident around labeling Call of Duty a first person shooter even though it has a leveling system? It’s because we’re assigning those labels not because of their surface mechanics or camera perspectives or techniques. But because of the fundamental human desires, emotions, and interests those genres deliver on; the underlying reasons we play which are radically different in these two cases. First person shooter games are among some of my personal favorites. However, I could really do with working on my aim. Some of the top pros are recommending aiming.pro as a good aim trainer. I might have to do some research into aim training to see whether it could help improve my in-game shooting skills.

…There are various different ways that games can engage us, which some designers refer to as “core play aesthetics.” Narrative, challenge, fellowship, discovery. And that’s just to name a few.

What James¹, Daniel, and Alison are explaining here is called “needs and gratification theory” even though they don’t label it as such. It’s actually been kicking around the media psychology circles for decades, starting back in the 1940s when social scientists were interested in why men in fedoras chose to listen to radios dramas or read the newspaper over other activities.² Though the methodology and theory building improved, the core concept of needs and gratification theory has largely stayed consistent: We are attracted to media based on how well we expect it to satisfy internal needs.

Due to the interactive nature of video games I think the needs and usage theory makes even more sense, though it hasn’t been empirically tested much. We are attracted to games because of the internal needs they help us fulfill. The Extra Credits examples of narrative, challenge, fellowship, and discovery make a pretty good list, though I would suggest additions like expression (for games that let you build, customize, and share), competition (for those games that facilitate comparing yourselves against others), and brain teasing (for puzzle games and word games).

This sort of thinking makes me wonder if brands would be better off thinking about themselves as fitting into a portfolio of brands that fulfill a similar group of needs rather than thinking of themselves in terms of their competitive set. I guess this naturally occurs in strategic decks, but I wonder if the pursuit of whitespace in marketing could be a distraction from truly owning an organization’s identity.

(Via The Psychology of Video Games)

As with most business/branding theory, this has been said many times before. Most recently and notably Simon Sinek. But here it is again:

Adam Lashinsky’s new book Inside Apple offers lots of intriguing material about Steve Jobs and the strategic choices, design principles, and business tactics that created the most valuable company on earth. But for all of Lashinsky’s behind-the-scenes material about Apple’s legendary leader, it was a public story about Apple’s new leader, CEO Tim Cook, that captured my attention — and offered a powerful insight for leaders everywhere looking to create value in their organizations.

The story goes back to January 21, 2009, during Cook’s inaugural conference call with investors after Jobs announced his medical leave of absence. The very first question, Lashinsky reports, was from an analyst who wanted to know whether Cook might replace Jobs permanently and how the company would be different if he did. Cook did not respond with a detailed review of the products Apple made or the retail environments in which it sold them. Instead, he offered an impromptu, unscripted statement of what he and everyone at Apple believed — “as if reciting a creed he had learned as a child” in Sunday School.

“We believe that we are on the face of the earth to make great products, and that’s not changing,” Cook declared.

“We believe in the simple not the complex…We believe in saying no to thousands of products, so that we can really focus on the few that are truly important and meaningful to us,” he added.

“We believe in deep collaboration and cross-pollination of our groups, which allow us to innovate in ways other cannot…And I think that regardless of who is in what job those values are so embedded in this company that Apple will do extremely well,” he concluded.

It’s not what you sell it’s what you believe. If there is one principle that explains why some organizations — Apple, Southwest Airlines, USAA, Cirque du Soleil, the Marine Corps, Pixar — consistently and dramatically outperform their rivals, it is that every person in the organization, regardless of job title or function, understands what makes the organization tick and why what the organization does matters.

I think this is what can make advertising campaigns feel stale like cigarette smoke from the 70s. Most of it works backwards. It’s especially apparent in every technology company that attempts to “kill” an Apple product with features, speeds and feeds. It’s sort of sad, like watching calvary riding on horseback against the blitzkrieg. It’s like trying to seduce a happily married woman through feats of strength.  Attacking a deeply emotional bond with rational features that offer incremental improvements at best. Yet tech companies keep doing it. Charging the windmills at full gallop.

(Via HBR.org)