a letter from Starbucks

Hi, We're making a change. Using simpler recipes and taking out artificial ingredients. So your food not only tastes better, it is better. It's a start. But we think it's a good one. Hope you do too. Enjoy.

Your Friends at Starbucks

PS. More to come.

I don't always enjoy lots of copy on my product packaging, but Starbucks has done a nice job handling theirs over the years. And this "letter" of new development is no exception. I think this will do good things for them in the wake of McDonald's offering premium coffees. If Mickey D's ever wrote a letter like this on their packaging, you'll bet they'd earn more media than Monster and Threadless combined.

the 4 S's of viral

"A viral won't go viral just because it's a viral." I said this in a meeting the other day and as clumsily syntaxed as it is, I want to develop what I meant.

The client says: we want a viral.

The creative team: creates a viral.

But what IS a viral? And what makes something GO viral?

Let's find out.

"A viral is something worth sharing," says Rob Birgfeld on SmartBlogs.

Dominque Hind says there are 3 things to remember about a viral:

• Must be a great idea
• Viral doesn’t necessarily mean free
• Nurture the campaign to get it out there.

And we learn from Karl Long that a viral isn't a strategy but a tactic within the more holistic term of co-creative marketing.

In the post from Karl, I especially like what he says about tactics, such as virals, building social equity with your brand. He described social equity in October 2007 as “built by aggregating, connecting, reflecting and amplifying all of the small user contributions over time so the whole is worth much more than the sum of its parts.”

You see, everything used to be about brand equity - where brands were one of the most valuable assets a company could have. But in the age of social media, we need different terms. And borrowing the term from Karl, social equity - where social networks are one of the most valuable assets a brand can have - is where we need to focus now. In creating social equity you need to take into consideration what starts a conversation and what begs to be shared - is it creativity? is it a thought? is it a point?

Anyway, back to viral. In this post, we learn that viral is a tactic used by brands to create Social equity. To do this, they need to

Simple - be birthed from an uncomplicated idea
Sharable - have all the necessary social media tools attached
Supported - be nurtured by various brand ambassadors - bloggers/influencers online, PR people at the agency, or synced up with traditional creative in an innovatively creative way

So next time someone says "let's do a viral," make sure you've got the 4 S's in place so that you're not just creating more digital crap to take up cyberspace.

writing a brand manifesto

From David at brandgymblog:

Brand manifestos are a better way to work on the vision for your brand, allowing you more freedom to express yourself, and [to help identify] what you really want to "fight for".

What are your guiding principles, beliefs and issues you want to take a stand on?

I encourage people to use provocative language, not politically correct corporate speak.

There are a series of exercises in Brand Vision to use in creating a brand manifesto, including:

1. If you were on a protest march in the street to fight against something, what would you write on your banner? And if you were to flip this into a positive and fight for something, what would you write?
2. What is the bigger role your brand can play in everyday life? What sort of "legacy" would you like to leave behind after 5 years on the brand?

A comment on David's post reads: we forget that we're supposed to be engaging people. Not clients. Not consumers. But people. And the only way to really do this is to talk in simple, human terms.

Jennifer Rice says on her blog:

So I see a brand manifesto as a declaration of 1) the core intention of the brand, 2) the guiding principles of the brand, and 3) the policies that guide each department to effectively realize the stated intention. So unlike brand visions or missions (which only focus on intention), a brand manifesto should get into the nitty gritty of turning the intention into reality.

Ultimately, a manifesto needs to put a stake in the ground - what do you stand for? what do the people who subscribe to your vision believe in? what world do you and they want to see?

Take a stab at it, it might feel poetic, it might feel liberating, it might just be the best thing you ever did for your brand. :)

the making of a trend lab

This blog post is purely for self-reflection and to help me think through an idea. But in the process, I'm going to share with you a project I've been working on for almost 2 years.

I think it was during my first week at the agency that they handed over a project to me (more like delegated) - we want you to build a trend lab. Back then, "trend lab" was an idea completely and entirely encapsulated in two words: trend (sounds cool) lab (sounds purposeful). I got a teeny tiny room on the quiet, hardly-frequented 10th floor. I did my best to make it cool - added visual stimulation in the form of creative ad work, magazine articles, and as many different colored stick pins that I could find. No one came into "the lab," so I started inviting people down, to talk, to share, to collaborate with. At one point in time, we were capturing the Consumer Confidence Index rating, the latest in creativity, the latest in marketing/communications, general articles about innovative cultural events or transformations, and consumer insights relative to particular audiences (Boomers, Gen Xers, etc.). People still weren't coming down in crowds. The people that did come down said it was cool once they were there, but still not purposeful yet, not an agency utility. Trend Lab 1.0 lasted over a year (that's about how long it takes when you've got one person working on the idea amid actual account/client work. I also needed that time to understand how the agency worked; of course I had my ideas of what I would want a Trend Lab to be, but I needed to take into account my audience and the category - other agency resources. What would make the Trend Lab different?

In its second year (and mine), it is alive and well in the form of a Trend Lab newsletter titled the MYT (see posts below for examples). The MYT stands for Making You Think, because we really saw the point of a trend lab to be thinking outside the box, being on the cusp of edgy and cool, making the work smarter and more relevant. I knew this from the beginning but still making a room out of it has been an uphill battle. Somehow I need to change the agency's behavior to incorporate a stop at the Trend Lab, it's needs to be a culture thing. If we want to produce advertising that engages, we better have a culture that engages internally.

And so, with Trend Lab (now a proper noun within the agency) 2.0 (thanks to the newsletter, it actually exists!) we have a room to differentiate from all other rooms in the agency. We're no longer on 10 but on 13, more at the core of the agency. Now our Trend Lab seeks to engage and offers a place for something agency people can't get elsewhere. Making You Think is not just the point of the newsletter, the point of the Trend Lab has been simplified to the art of thinking. It has become a sort of "prop warehouse" for planners to tell a story, for creatives to get inspiration, for anyone interested in collaboration to join in and be exposed to how other people think through conversation.

The brand promise of the Trend Lab is close to the campaign that restored Apple's reputation but not exactly. Think Different was a call to the creative class that said you are different, embrace your intricacies. The Trend Lab exists to make you think. As a resource within an agency that has many resources - most for information gathering, but none to stimulate or engage people, the purpose of the Trend Lab (its utility) is facilitating creative conversations. There's a certain call to action with a conversation; good ones require you to engage, to interact, to provide a POV, and to listen. Trend Lab 2.0 takes a lot of cues from social media, where the people matter and the conversation is what drives the interactions.

Ok. I've got it. Now off to write a manifesto to ensure that those who subscribe to this mentality and way of working will know there are others like them, interacting, thinking, and discussing in new ways, in the Trend Lab.

writing a social media plan

I am one part of a small team helping a local film festival get off the ground here in Dallas. As a faithful participant in various social media (Twitter, Yelp, Facebook, Blogger), I have volunteered to take a stab at a social media plan for the brand. Of course, I have all of this information in my head, and I put it to use on a daily basis, easy cheesy. But thinking about doing it for a "formal" brand, supported by a corporation, I need a formal plan. So here are some tools I'm finding along the way:

5 Steps to developing a Social Media Plan from Mashable

Obama's Social Media Plan from The Conversation Agent

22 Tools to Consider from Mashable (thank you guys!)

Best Buy Connect's Tips & Expectations

List of 40 Social Media Staff Policies

Hope this helps you write your own.

Visual Thinking

We all get spam. But in the workplace, it's a different kind of spam - vendors hoping to prove their usefulness with the provision of information. Jen Spencer might have it right:

"We all know we are in the Information Age, constantly being bombarded through email (sometimes in the form of newsletters - ha!), tv, blogs, ads, marketing messages, and the list goes on and on. This barrage of information often leaves us in a continuous state of being overwhelmed, making it difficult to focus, see clarity, and find the mental space and time for innovation.

Check out Jessica Hagy's work at Indexed.

I happened upon the Visual Thinking Movement, through a local maven and crusader, Sunni Brown. Visual thinking '...is the common phenomenon of thinking through visual processing using the part of the brain that is emotional and creative to organize information in an intuitive and simultaneous way.'

This method of working is being used by all levels of professionals to connect facts and insights with visual images and representations, allowing for a higher level of understanding and recall from the audience to which they are speaking. Graphic recorders and facilitators have shown their prowess at events like TED and SXSW Interactive.

Most of you work in creative environments and practice this work for your clients in one form or another. Images are powerful and words can create magic -- whether you are marketing a message, creating an ad, designing a logo, the details matter. And, too many details clutter.

Visual thinking marries creativity with your thought process. The emerging result can bring about a different cognition for yourself and others.

And, the great thing is: anyone can do it! You don't need to be an "artist" or "creative" to practice visual thinking and implement visual thinking skills in all aspects of your life. As Austin Kleon says, there are only 5 shapes (dot, line, circle, square, and triangle).

Check out Visual Notetaking 101 offered by VizThink

How can you use visual thinking?
1) To cut through the noise to hear the succinct points
2) Steal a creative moment in everyday meetings, conference calls, and presentations
3) Sell a complex or simple idea through to a client
4) Describe a process or desired outcome
5) Laying out a project and timeline
6) Understanding cogs in the wheel
7) Goal Setting
8) Self-Expression
etc.

ADDITIONAL RESOURCES
Training offered through The Grove + VizThinkU
The Back of the Napkin: Solving Problems and Selling Ideas with Picutres
Ed Emberley's Drawing Book: Make a World
Handbook of Pictorial Symbols
Indexed

Give a damn, get a lot. - by Jessica Hagy of Indexed (image above)

Lastly, if you would like to enhance and develop your skills and talent and achieve a higher level of leadership and satisfaction in the work you do, Jen Spencer Coaches is here to support you in your greatness.

My niche: Companies and individuals that provide creative services.
My clients: Men in their 30's and 40's going through transition and evolution AND driven women

Jen Spencer Coaches wants to hear more about you. To receive a complimentary consultation, email or call Jen.

Enjoy your brains (left and right)! And experience a wonderful summer..."

And that's Jen Spencer and her wonderful, unexpected Spam.

Hope you all enjoy thinking about Visual Thinking.
Have a creative day!

Global Collective

Heavily inspired by The New Socialism and Us Now was this week's MYT: The Global Collectivist Society. Click on the picture at right to see it bigger.

New projects are being worked on by many people from many different places, all enabled by the web. It's awesome to think about the power of collaboration and of a working business model that's run by "group think" and everyone taking equal ownership.

Two heads are definitely better than one, three are better than two, etc.

The MYT is a collaborative effort between myself and another Miami Ad School planner here at the agency. Part trend hunting/part cool shit, it's objective is Making You Think. Enjoy.

keeping things honest

I got a compliment the other day from a colleague:

"Thanks for keeping us honest."

It's hard sometimes to make the time to actually look at all the information we have to position a brand, identify a target, and set true objectives. But it's always easy to make decisions if the information you have is insightful.

Find the insights planners, they are out there.

tone and tenor

This morning on NPR, they had a segment about wire taps - that hearing it straight from the source with the original speaker's demeanor, tone and tenor, was more useful than a recreated scene from a crime or case. It made me think of qualitative research - that actually conducting qualitative in-home interviews, man on the street interviews, or ethnographic style projects, would pay forward tenfold in making the case for a particular strategy.

The reporter said that 50% of communication is done with tone and tenor. I think 50% of our time spent hypothesizing whether or not this creative will work OR testing it once it's done should be spent just talking to consumers, hearing it straight from the source, asking the right questions, and making notes on their tone and tenor. Because if insight can make or break a criminal case, it surely can be used to make or break a creative one.

Plan on.

Insight Chasers

on a long drive today, I started to think about what if...I started my own agency. Thinking about filling a niche that traditional agencies try so hard to reach while setting myself up for long-term planner wisdom and connections planning 101, I arrived at the name (and purpose) of Insight Chasers.

now, if I can only harness the power of the creative collective online via social media, maybe this 'agency' could be virtual, of the future, and accessible to anyone.

read The New Socialism by Wired and you'll get a better sense of the collectivist community I'm referring to.

let's talk about Books, baby

In the absence of thoughtful content, I'll talk about books.

A book that entered my life recently on loan from a colleague is In Praise of Slowness: Challenging the cult of speed. What is the Slow Movement?

It is a cultural revolution against the notion that faster is always better. The Slow philosophy is not about doing everything at a snail’s pace. It’s about seeking to do everything at the right speed. Savoring the hours and minutes rather than just counting them. Doing everything as well as possible, instead of as fast as possible. It’s about quality over quantity in everything from work to food to parenting.

It was a truly fantastic read, engaging the mind, senses, and emotions on a completely different level. The chapter on slowness in the work like, I found to be particularly inspirational.

Tonight, I went to Borders - on a mission to find periodicals that cater to the affluent (new business pitch). I wound up purchasing: Cigar Aficionado, RobbReport Sports & Luxury Automobile, and the RobbReport 21st Annual Best of the Best. There seems to be a deficit in magazines that cover "luxury," but my ignorant hypothesis is that the affluent don't read magazines.

Once I had the mags firmly in hand, I perused and bought (for my pleasure and edification) the following:

Turning the mind into an ally - (on the back) Strengthening, calming, and stabilizing the mind is the essential first step to accomplishing nearly any goal.

Messages: The Communication Skills Book - You'll discover new skills to help you communicate your ideas more effectively and become a better listener.

50th Anniversary Communication Arts - 38 Award-winning projects showcasing the best of interactive design

There's Treasure Everywhere (Calvin & Hobbes) - These two never cease to amaze me. :)

I'll leave you with a quote from Calvin:

"Why wait until I'm a teen-ager? I want to be idolized now!"

plannerly advice

My director and I went to launch a month ago so I could pick his brain about things to improve upon. Here are some of his advice clips on being a planner:

• The job of the planner is to be the most confident person in the room. If you think about it, we're the ones who actually make sense of why we're doing what we're doing, why we're talking to a particular target audience, why we're using this particular strategy, why this strategy works, etc. Knowing that all of the parts make sense should allow us to speak with confidence. :)
• With this confidence, planners set in place the backbone of an idea. Again, we're there to answer the 'why'? We need to sound like we're in control.

At times when I'm struggling for a new angle or maybe the day-to-day has caught up with me and my life feels like Groundhog's Day, I turn the planning discipline on myself. Where am I? Where do I want to be? How do I get there?

Ok. Go!

just do it!

As a Virgo, I'm a big fan of organization. I also have a tendency to get overwhelmed with my perfectionisms (I don't think that's a word, but it should be: a combo of mannerisms and a perfectionist's attitude).

Today, I'm tackling the art and science of writing a "to do" list. Btw, I love that there is an "art" to it; in fact, there's an art to anything as long as you desire to work creatively. :)

Lifehacker says think of your "to do" list as a list of instructions: if the instructions are clear, specific, and easily executed, you're golden. The instructions should be written in such a way that you don't have to do any additional thinking once you've read them. It's the planning up front that does the thinking for you; Lifehacker says 90% of doing anything is the planning.

Make sure you differentiate between projects and tasks. A "to do" list is not the place for projects that require a lot thinking or are vague in description (Ex. write a research plan). To make it on the list, these projects need to be broken up into tiny, smaller tasks (Ex. Write background, write, objectives, write target audience, write topics to discuss, etc).

Use specific, active verbs. Inspire yourself to work with creative terms of action: analyze, create, write, develop, organize, etc. Note: if something's been on your list for a long time, break it down further or re-word it to get the energy going. 43 Folders says the best trick here is to simply phrase your task in a form like: “verb the noun with the object.”

Consider, for example, how an oversized to-do like “Prepare the big presentation” might be improved upon by zeroing in on the physicality of a first step like “Draft four ideas for our presentation’s theme.” Where the former task provides no purchase for a sensible ascent, the latter gives us a fat handle for getting started with something that already feels familiar.

Well, I hope this has helped some of you. I know it's certainy given me some food for thought when writing out my next "to do" list or revising my current one. Make items actionable, make them tasks and not projects, break it all down into bite-size bits, use the right verbs, and start getting things done. Just do it!

Because only you hold the power and responsibility for defining your work. (43 folders)

levels of connectivity

Everyone wants to know how to get involved with social media. What BIG IDEA do I need to come up with? Is it an advertising space? How do I do it.

Funjet Vacations (via one of Gmail's ads) has got it right. They are connected. They understand that I might want to share some of the information I see on their site with other people I know. So they have put information on social media sites that enable that sharing to happen.

Another useful way to use these same sites is to provide options to share the information you're currently reading on X site ON Facebook, Myspace, Twitter, via email, etc.

I do like how Funjet provide a myriad of ways in which you can receive information from them, depending on your level of connectivity.

I expect to see more sites integrating with the main three (Myspace really seems to be going the music route): Facebook, YouTube, and Twitter.

With so much on the web, having these ubiquitous tools helps us all streamline communications and the information that's relevant to us. Instead of creating something new (unless it's better), just sync up with these already existing, popular social media sites. Your fans will thank you.

my mission

WOW. Even though I've changed the header several times since I started this blog, my mission is still the same idea:

One of the most motivating words to me is connectivity: the value of being connected in order to grow. This blog should be a center for a learning, a place to share experiences and knowledge, and a social media outlet for junior planners who read blogs.

Funny that I probably wrote this in early 2008, and we couldn't be more connected to each other as we are today, and social media has taken off like wild fire.

I need to pay tribute to Piers for teaching me how to spot trends. :)

Overhaul

Hey JPIA fans, I want to apologize for the lack of serious content lately. I hate to disappoint. I have a lot to say and have found myself getting setback by "the fear of perfection" lately...it's stupid really. A wonderful recruiter once told me about stalling on my resume: "Well you're definitely not going to get a job that way!" True dat.

So I think what I need is a clean-up. As a strategist, I need a BIG IDEA to inspire the direction I go with this "overhaul."

BIG IDEA: creative connectivity? Inspire productivity? (woah, a rhyme!) how about: connected productivity? I wish I had a better word for productivity...NOTE TO PLANNERS: EVERY WORD ON THE BRIEF COUNTS, don't ever think that it doesn't.

I'm looking for inspiration lately. The work day sometimes just seems to fly by without any of it...damnit, I can do something about this. :)

Ok, so I know where I want to be. Where am I now - feeling stuck, bogged down by "too much stuff," overwhelmed with idealism, inhibited by deadlines. YIKES!

JPIA needs a pep-talk. Come on Junior! Get your sh*t together, you can do this! You love planning, creating ALL aspects of a strategy, and being creative with communications; The "social world" is so easy to get wrapped up in. Make time for your solo act; it will pay-forward into the social sphere tenfold.

off to clean-up now. Go!

MYT 17 - An Optimist's Economy

Twitter stats

Oh you, blog, every time I find you and come back to post something, I feel like I'm re-discovering you all over again. I'm glad I have you. :)

My post: Twitter stats.

Currently I am following 150 people, some of these people include: @herdmeister (Mark Earls), @Kotaku, @kylecameron (Kyle Studstill), @iconoculture, and @chr1sa (Chris Anderson)

222 people have decided to follow me. This feels good. To have a community 222 strong means I bring "value" to a large group of people on a pretty regular basis, and this number is only going to grow.

I have almost updated my Twitter feed 400 times (currently at 390). Wow. This feels like a ridiculous amount of Tweets, and to the people who don't get this service at all, it would seem uber ridiculous. But I think these numbers are all good ones.

I feel like I've made some new friends on Twitter. Again, the people who don't get Twitter would be laughing their a**es off if they read this. They don't get it, this Twitter gig; and honestly, after reading about the guys who started it, I think they're a bit surprised themselves, but I think only good will come of it.

What do you think?

This week's MYT

Next-Gen News - the future of news will be timely, relevant, bite-size bits of customizable content

conversations to listen for

Stumbled on this today: Ten conversations to listen for in social media; they are:

• The complaint
• The compliment
• The problem
• The question or inquiry
• The campaign impact
• The crisis
• The competitor
• The crowd
• The influencer
• The point of need

For clients wondering how to use social media, this is a great primer list. Now you just have to be sure and have the right research company lined up to monitor the conversation.