I recently read a few outstanding articles that speak to this issue of 1) owning vs. challenging a brand’s monopoly, and the related issues of 2) embracing what is unique about a company 3) creating a unique and extremely useful shopping experience based off of a unique brand ; and I wanted to pass these along here:

Apple’s unchallenged monopoly
http://kensegall.com/blog/2011/11/ads-apples-unchallenged-monopoly/

Why Jeff Bezos is OK with Amazon being Amazon, and nobody else http://m.wired.com/magazine/2011/11/ff_bezos/all/1

What Ron Johnson learned from building the Apple Store Empire http://blogs.hbr.org/cs/2011/11/what_i_learned_building_the_ap.html

After receiving the book from Amazon (that story here), I was first suprised by the shear size of the book. This things a monstor, by today’s literary work’s standards. Close to 3″ tall, and it’s not even large print. Isaacson has surely done his homework, not to leave any stone unturned. Which leads me to this post.

I am only a small bit into the book, but I am already enthralled, if you can’t tell, ha. So when I saw that PBS would be airing an hour documentary special on Steve’s live, I thought it would be interesting to compare the two works.

While somewhat informative on a very very high level, I was really suprised how much detail and backstory was left out, compared to the book. Granted, this is to be expected wthen comparing an hour long video production versus an exhaustive literary work, but I was still suprised by just how much was skimmed over.

So as I make my way throught this mountain of a book, I wanted to share my thoughts along the way, in smaller snippets here on my blog.

I will try and keep the post relatively short and to the point, starting with a quote or section from the book. And as always, I would love to see the discussion grow with your own observations.

I am only 23 pages into the work, but my mind is already racing with new insights and observations Walter Isaacson has dug up, to the benefit of us all.

Here’s to the crazy ones.

Fast forward to this past Saturday, when I received an approximately book shaped package. I was giddy, to say the least. I knew the book was set to come out publicly this Monday, but I thought maybe Amazon had picked up some customer “surprise and delight” cues from their recent acquisition of Zappos, and had surprised me with the book a few days earlier than expected.

No go. It was a different book, from a different vendor.

Disappointed, I consoled myself in the fact that I would have the book in just a few days, assuming Amazon’s stellar track record would stay true. Or so I hoped.

Monday morning I awoke to an email not telling me my order had shipped or would be arriving soon, but rather that they needed further information from me to complete the order.

I understand that I supplied incomplete information and therefore partially my fault, but this was over two weeks ago. Disappointed that this had not been addressed much earlier, I completed all that was needed, and then waited for progress.

And I’m still waiting, over 24 hours later. It’s tuesday, yet Order status: shipping soon. With no further details as to why.

You might have surmised this already, but I’m pretty disappointed with this whole user experience. So for what it’s worth, here are a few suggestions. again, mostly from the high expectations I have from my fantastic experiences with Zappos:

1) When a pre-order is placed, handle all necessary paperwork / fulfillment details immediately, so that the order will ship as soon as possible.

2) A customer who goes out of his or her way to pre-order an item should have that item in hand at the same time it is available to all, if not before. Otherwise, I don’t see the use of pre-ordering. For instance, I pre-ordered a book set to come out to the public on this past Monday, and it should have been at my house on Monday, if not earlier. On a side note, kindle customers did receive their copy early. But I will leave the fragmented user experience / company to another post.

3) If the above two options cannot happen, and the item cannot be shipped until the release date, all customers who pre-order a hardback copy should be given a kindle copy until the hardback comes in the mail.

I realize this last suggestion is a big step, as it was questioned on twitter when i originally proposed it, but here is my reasoning: Amazon should do what all of the best business do: play to their unique strengths, in order to create a substantial competitive advantage.

First, Amazon is without a doubt the industry leader in online book retail, and the accompanying fulfillment and delivery system. Nobody else even comes close. Nobody. This is the first strength to play off of.

Second, and not as strongly, Amazon is a major player in the ebook market, though it is seeing major competition from iBooks and others. They have a good platform, and some promising new devices, but they are in a fearce competition, and need something to help them stick out.

If Amazon combined the two strengths, as I have suggested above for pre-order customers, it could create a HUGE competitive advantage, and greatly increase it’s repeat customers for such transactions.

As it stands currently, I went through the extra steps of pre-ordering the Steve Jobs autobiography, and yet I might receive it on 4 days late, on Thursday. Or Friday. who knows really.

I love Amazon’s services. I genuinely hopes this actually spurs changes that help Amazon, whether ones that I have stated, or something different entirely. I just wish Amazon would take a few pointers from Zappos, and their over the top customer service. It sure does pay off, just look at the purchase price they paid for the startup.

Update
I sent an email with these thoughts to Jeff Bezos, the founder and CEO of amazon, and he responded! Granted it was through his assistant, but that’s understandable. He understood my frustrations, and greatly appreciated that i went beyond just frustration and offered a solution. He is not sure if my ideas are completely feasible, but he has passed the ideas down to the heads of the respective departments. A class act. Well done mr Bezos!

Here are a few of my early favorites, but i’d love to hear everyone else’s thoughts as well:

Social Media Cures Cancer and Speaks for Survivor
Speakers: Doug Ullman – CEO of Livestrong, and Julie Shussler – Burson-Marsteller

Agency 2.0: Introducing the Innovation Lab
Speakers: Jamie and Chris Monberg – Hornall Anderson

Design from the Gut: Dangerous or Differentiator?
Speakers: Phil Coffman – Springbox / Method & Craft, Naz Hamid – weightshift, Laurel Hechanova – Apocalypse OK, and tom watson – facebook

OMG Your RFP is Killing Me
Speakers: Joe Rinaldi – Happy Cog, and a panel of others

Humanize the Web: Illustrating for Interactive
Speakers: Gerren Lamson – GSDM, and Reagun Ray – Paravel

The Right Tool for the Job: Native or Mobile Web?
Speakers: Buzz Andersen – Tumblr, and a panel of others

TenseUp: Creating Positive Tensions In Experiences
Speaker: Matt Walsh – Crispin Porter + Bogusky

Building the Dell app, therapy for a brand.
Speakers: michael kriegshauser – Dell Global Site Design, and a panel of others

Navigating danger in marketing’s in-between times
Speakers: Allison McCarthy, Guthrie Dolin, and Larry Johnson – Odopod

A Brief History of the Complete Redesign of Google
Speakers: Jon Wiley, and a whole panel from Google

Is it better to bring it In-House?
Speakers: John Stevens and Tommy Lynn – Dell Global Creative

Shameless plug for my own panel:
3 creatives. 3 amazing projects. 18 minutes each.
I’ll moderate, and speakers / creatives To Be Determined! maybe you?!

So those are a few of my favorites. What about you?

So I wanted to share a few reasons that weighed heavily on my consideration of this opportunity, and hopefully you might find them helpful on your own journey.

Dream no small dreams

In some ways, my career so far could not have gotten off to a better start. I had the honor of working at the top advertising shop in the world, at Crispin Porter + Bogusky, daily mixing it up with some of the brightest minds in the creative industry, and partnering with dream clients that were as generous with the creative reigns as Gordoughs is with the awesomeness. A dream job indeed.

And for the last few years, I was part of the scrappy digital agency, Springbox, learning from some very smart, business minded creative gurus. It was here at Springbox, that I’ve truly started to find that sweetspot, where creative innovation, business goals, and user’s need all meet. Not to mention we had dream clients like Livestrong and Sweet Leaf Tea, and a steady supply of Brooklyn lager in the fridge. Good times.

So when a handful of tempting opportunities came my way, it was my instinct to lean to the hippest, most cutting edge, and overall leaders of the creative / technology industries. All great options, but all in someway easy options. Proven track records, tons of recent success to leverage, and fan bases like the world has never seen before. All of them would have been dream jobs to some degree.

But great stories are never about the easy life, or the luxuries one affords himself (via Donald Miller’s ‘A thousand miles in a million years’). Great stories are always about overcoming great obstacles. The underdog, the one everyone had counted out, who then came back to prove all the naysayers wrong.

I want to live a great story. I want to tell my grandkids of when the chips were down, and we proved them all wrong.

So even as Dell currently has some things going for them (which I’ll get to shortly), I also know that as a brand, they have taken quite a hit with the public perception over the last 5-10 years. There is much work to do. And it will require much blood, sweat and tears, as all great adventures do. And that, has the potential for a great comeback story.

Though dell has seen some rough spots over the last decade, there are many reasons for hope, and I will highlight a few of them next.

Momentum

Over the last year, Dell has been going through a massive and far reaching re-branding, largely led by an in-house team. Far beyond merely a logo, a few colors, and a typeface, this effort is addressing the entire brand prescence. And with a corporation this massive, this has been no small task. I have seen this first hand over the last year, as part of the team at Springbox working in partnership. I will admit that I was a bit skeptical about the rebranding when I first began to see it implemented. Many of us have seen corporations undergo a “rebranding”, while the reality is merely a new coat of paint. Though I thought this may be the case at first, I’m now convinced that I was wrong. There is change happening, and Dell is moving in the right direction. There is a renewed identity and passion in who Dell is as a company, as a force for good. There is a new found focus on design, aesthetics, real world usefulness, user experience, and overall brand perception. There is a good bit of momentum, and with a corporation this large, this is no small feat.

Support from leadership

As I saw the momentum building over the last year, I knew that it had to be a huge team effort, but I also knew that it had to contain a key element often missing from the majority of design / branding / creative changes in corporations: they had the support from leadership. More than just a sign off, change is being driven from both the top down, as well as bottom up. This is huge. Unless the leadership values and desires to see change happen, a million psd files / sketches / and dreams will all go for not.

A stellar team is forming

As I began to tell some fellow creatives about my decision, one of the things that I kept hearing repeatedly was “oh wow, my really talented friend / former coworker just joined the team there”. Though I didn’t know this so much when I accepted the offer, it has been quite reassuring and exciting to hear time and time again. Designers, writers, technologist, interaction designers, producers, and more. The breadth and depth of experience is impressive. Along with having support from leadership, I also believe it’s crucial to have teammates who are both highly skilled and passionate about their craft. I’m excited to join this growing team.

50 years from now, I want to look back over my life and be thankful for the people and teams I had the honor to be a part of, remember the challenges I conquered, and have no regrets about how I invested my God given time, energy, and passion. Here’s to being one step closer.

The title “client’s are not the target audience, user’s are”, might be a bit heady, so, simply put, we explored the challenge of getting clients to move past traditional promotional advertising (aptly nicknamed ‘interuption’ by the smart folks at @rga ), and instead partner with clients to create truly unique and engaging digital experiences centered around their brand’s unique value.

So to the highlights…

to introduce the topic, I told a quick story of how this topic came to be burning within me: Last fall, I was in a agency internal meeting, discussing a client project mid way through, when a certain client request caused a riff among the team. My creative partner and I listened to the request, but strongly objected, for both conceptual and functional reasons. Another member of my team strongly pushed back, and eventually gave the reasoning “we have to do it. we’re to make the client happy”. At this point, I pretty much flipped. Almost instantly, I responded with “we’re not here to make the client happy. We’re here to help the client make a great digital experience. They may not be instantly happy everytime.” I probably could have had more tact, but it is a strong passion of mine, and ultimately inspired me to lead this talk. Now on with the actual talk.

We framed the conversation around two key phases in each project: how to begin a project well, and then how to keep focus midway through a project (when everything is bogging down) and finish well. With each phase, anton and I both gave a case study example from our own experiences. I’ll frame this write up in the same way.

how to begin a project well

I spoke about my experience at Springbox (an interactive agency in Austin) in leading the design for the 2010 complete re-design of http://www.Livestrong.org , the non-profit division of the Lance Armstrong Foundation, aimed at helping “all whose lives are affected by cancer. It is an amazing orginization, with an feircely loyal and supportive following. I focused on knowing exactly who your target audience is. Our team did this by creating an extremely helpful set of fictional personas, based on factual research.

While we looked at the traditional factor / demographics of the audience, such as age, sex, nationality, language, education level, etc.; what i found extremely helpful were some additional factors. These included: how are these people affected by cancer (they have just been diagnosed, their mom has cancer, etc.)? What are they trying to accomplish by coming to the site? What is their digital technology savviness? How do they use technology in their daily lives? What is their experience with the Livestrong brand?

After looking through these evolved personas, I was able to reason that people came to livestrong.org for two primary reasons: To either get help (as they or someone close to them is in immediate need of help), or they have come to take action, such as to participate in a livestrong marathon, bake sale, or one of a number of great events. After discovering this key insight, the whole project shifted from ‘how do i create a visually stunning site?’, and but instead to ‘how do craft the whole digital experience through these two priorities, in both aesthetic and heirarchy’. this finding made all the difference in creating an extremely useful, and easily navigable site.

On the first topic, Anton shared his recent experience in creating the HTC Sense website , a really playful and well done site! I will be much more brief here, as I do not want to misquote him, but I will share some of the highlights. In regards to the HTC site, Anton spoke of how the client had some really amazing features, called HTC Sense, but didn’t quite know how best to communicate them in a conversational and non-techy tone. To communicate these features in a fun and truly interactive way, @F_i crafted a series of interactive cartoon shorts, in which the viewer actually plays with the phone on the site, and experiences the aha moment through interaction, rather than just a observational video. Really cool stuff.

how to keep focus midway through a project (when everything is bogging down) and finish well.

or how to push through the “crap, just get it out the door moment”. Originally I had wanted the talk to focus on just the beginning of a project, but Anton had so many great insights on the latter that we had to include it. Honestly, I personally learned a ton on this topic, and found it extremely helpful in the day to day of running a creative services shop.

Here are a few highlights that really stuck out to me, in regards to finishing well:

As creatives, we have to be the expert, that’s why a client comes to us. you have to earn a client’s trust, and while a good portfolio is a good foundation, the details in a relationship really really matter. Things like: always be on time. heck, always be earlier. Always giving your client an idea of the contents of a meeting. Nothing elaborate, but start every meeting with a 30 sec – 1 min overview of what will be shown, discussed, what is new, old, etc. Always be organized. Ultimately, these might come across as trivial matters, but if the client is comfortable with you and can trust that your leading them well, they will let you control the project.

Educate the client. I know there is some opposition to this in the industry, but I agree with Anton. Most good clients are not creatives, or that experienced with the intricacies of the digital space, and they want to learn something. That’s a great opportunity for us, the digital creative professional. So own it, be on top of it, know your craft, know your industry. It should be something your passionate about, so it shouldn’t be that difficult.

And I save the best nugget for last: what do you do when the client has a request that they will not back down from, and you disagree strongly with? The grim reality, we are ultimately not fine artist or rock stars. we are in the service industry. The good news / wisdom from
Anton: find out what one section / page / feature matters most to the client, and make this amazing in their eyes! Then, find the other overlooked areas that most people never care much about, and freaking blow them out! For example, the login, contact, or about us page. Essentially, find out where you can play wide open, and where do you have to please. This is a huge encouragement and challenge at the same time.

In closing, I was truly blown away by the turn out and lively conversation. A huge thanks to everyone that was there, and a huge thanks to Anton for making the journey down south to join us! If you were with us, or even if your just digesting all of this now, I would love to continue the conversation here, so don’t hold back your thoughts!

passion

You may be tempted to skip over this part. I mean really, who wants to talk about passion, right? we’re in a business, an industry, who’s really passionate about the 9-5 anyway. Wrong. Above any thing else, the driving force of passion came up again and again for me while at south by. Though I can easily be distracted by the latest and greatest shiny gadget / idea / startup, ( what self respecting nerd can’t ;} ), the people and conversations that i consider most memorable are ones centered on whatever it is someone’s passionate about.

I’ll get to the offical business of the festival soon, but I wanted to first highlight the passion I found outside of the convention center halls. Whether it be conversations over pints at the gingerman, or over tacos at la condesca, the greatest moments for me were not spent leaning back gazing at slides or the next twittbookspace idea, but rather leaning intently into conversations about fatherhood, adoption, architecture, clients, pricing, camping, cylcing, and a handful of other topics. If we need more of anything at sxsw next year, it’s not opinions, technology, or parties. we (including myself) need more passion for the projects that fill up our moments, days, and lives.

a festival

I read that there were over 19,000 paying attendees this year, the greatest number in sxsw history. I also read that there was somewhere close to 1000 panels. Though at times the shear number of attendees and panels felt overwhelming, I’m thrilled overall to see both my city and my industry grow.

I was fortunate enough to make some outstanding panels, but I also missed a few, as to be expected with so many options at every turn. A few of my favorite in particular, were @rga ‘s “congratulations your brand is about to become obsolete”, Blake ( founder and chief shoe giver at Tom’s shoes, @blakemycoskie ) Mycoskie’s keynote, and john ( @jkolko ) kolko and dennis ( @dennis_littky ) littky ‘s panel “will technology save education” . Different subject matter for each, but the same theme of passion in each. These people are smart, but more importantly they are extremely passionate!

Overall, some of the panels were extremely basic, or mundane, but I did find some real gems! Sometimes you just have to dig! As far as value, I would say the conference is valuable, but I can not see myself ever paying for a badge. If in the future my company is paying, or if I get the honor to speak again and have my badge comped, I would love to come back. But I just can’t honestly say that the festival is worth $500 admission. I would pay $100, and consider $200. But not $500, at least at sxsw current state. which leads me to a challenge of where the festival can go!

Also, I am writing a summary of my own panel, “clients are not the target audience, users are”, co-led by the extremely smart and talented Anton @repponen, an associate creative director from fantasy interactive in new York, New York, and will post this shortly here on the kreathaus blog.

A Challenge

One of great individuals that I met this year, Ted @Boda , recently tweeted

“The best way to complain is to make things.” -James Murphy

This is the best summary for my thoughts on the possible future of sxswi. Over the course of the festival, I heard far too many complaints on how lame this or that panel / keynote / talk was. It was almost the standard way to start a conversation. And though I won’t deny that many of the panels were hit or miss, we can’t stop there.

We have to craft the future we want to live in. do you want sxsw to be amazing next year? well, how are you going to make it happen then?

so let’s drop the cynicism, evaluate what we’re passionate about, what we’re spending our lives on, and how those two things can intertwine.

So here’s my challenge for next year: Determine what your passionate about. What keeps you up at night? What project / business / app / idea do you day dream about? What project will you have invested so much time / sweat / and blood into by march of next year, that by the time I see you, you can’t help but tell me about it?

And if a couple thousand of us gather again next year in this fair city, with a passion for whatever it is we’re spending out lives on, I think we will alI be blown away.

So get to it. And I can’t wait to run into you next year!

Until next year, what were your thoughts on sxsw this year? how can we make it better? I’d love to hear other takes on the subject!

I’ll be speaking at #sxsw in just a few months! oh yeah!

So my topic officially is “Clients are not the target audience. Users are.” More info here

I am beyond thrilled, and honored to be included in an event i’ve wanted to take part in for quite some time. Beyond attending, getting to know some amazingly talented leaders in our industry, and taking in the festival in general, I also will get a Gold badge, which will grant me entrance into the Film festival as well. I’m by no means a film buff, and can only name a handful of actors at any given moment, but this should be a fun perk.

One last interesting tidbit, there is a great chance that I will be able to co-lead this discussion. At this point, the choice is not ultimately up to me, but I do have in mind a few people I wouldn’t mind meeting and leading this with. ( David Lai from @hellodesign , Tim Barber from @odopod , @squaredeye, or any of the creatives from @rga , @hugeinc , @hornallanderson, @f_i , @summitprojects , or @frogdesign , just to name a few possibilities I wouldn’t mind, in case your listening #sxswi staff )

2011 and Beyond by JWT Intelligence

I was really surprised by their track record from 2007-2010, and I found their report to be varied and broad, yet engaging. Everything from individuals, to flavors, to certain technologies, and a 100 things in between.

trendwatching.com’s take on 2011 consumer trends

Their 2011 briefing is succinct, and very global. Some really interesting thoughts here.

Springwise.com’s Top 20 business ideas & opportunities for 2011

Some odd ideas here, but also some stellar ones.

So those are my top pics. What about yours?

So this past friday was the last day of my first stab at a “100 day plan”, as inspired by Fahrenheit 212.

to put it softly, i failed miserably. in every category, i fell below 50% of the goal.

so i could just keep moving, forget about the goals all together. they were too tough, i had too much to do, blah, blah, blah. the excuses could go on forever.

No.

No excuses. I was just lazy in many areas.

So here’s to round two. Some of the goals have been reworked and a few new ones added.

What have you done in the last 100 days? What goals have you met? What audacious dreams have you dreamed?

But I have to end the post here, as I’m off to log in a few miles on the mountain bike for lunch.

Only 596 miles left to go.