One year ago, I wrote an article for a nonprofit multi-author book project called “The Age of Conversation“. At the time, social media in the form of online blogs and other interactive/collaborative content was a very hot topic in sociology, journalism, and business circles among others.

 
While I saw the obvious benefit for social media tied to public relations and customer service, I tried to expand my mind beyond the traditional applications. After all, effective communication is important to every business/org function across a variety of industries. While many of these will not be conducive to blogging per se, there are other online applications that can be built and used as platforms for research and collaboration as well. Since I had originally worked in Sales & Product Development, while coordinating at times with Manufacturing and Logistics, I had a unique perspective on how new media ‘tools’ could perhaps be used to improve communications among parties.

 
Blogging is but one tool; others may include polling, surveys, process documentation, creativity sessions, seminars, conference calls, remote meetings, design collaboration, multimedia sales presentations with feedback…the potential list can go on and on; and that’s where the fiery imagination can begin to stir, rubbing the hands, thinking: “How can what we’re doing now, somehow be done better?”. In an effort to expand the mind to potential online applications that employ conversation and discussion, I wrote the following article. If you enjoy it, please send it on to a friend who you’d think might enjoy it. ~Thanks.

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The practice of research and inquiry has been with us throughout the ages. We have built intelligence by analyzing synthesized information and data, then adding personal insight and experience to make it relevant. Mankind has applied this common process for scientific, socio-economic, and political development in both positive and negative ways including the advancement of medicine, the harvesting and processing of food, and the art of war and provincial management.
 
Let’s add a unique dimension of this process: Conversation

 
Soliciting feedback and conducting polls is an excellent form of information gathering. By doing so, analysts and decision makers mitigate the risk of making bad judgments based on inconclusive data. When conducted correctly, the process will have an additional benefit: the establishment of trust, loyalty, and appreciation among all participants to the organization or cause.

 
The illustration shown, classifies voices into 5 major categories. By starting a conversation with the attitude of a desire to collaboratively create a better product, service, relationship or experience NOW…we exhibit our commitment to unconditional quality and being a true team player. Being firm and sincere will always win attention and command respect. Regarding competitors and antagonists, human behavior would normally not lend itself to voluntary cooperation and the sharing of feedback or intelligence. However, the improvement of common macro-level processes and goals has historically been a powerful incentive by nations, organizations, and individuals to collaborate so that the tide of excellence and well-being for all boats in the water will rise.

 
In order to obtain great data and information from your participants, we must follow some basic rules. First, each conversation should be customized to each audience category’s profile. Second, give immediate transparency to all submitted information to promote candor and more honest feedback among participants. Third, some form of descriptive data is absolutely necessary; polling is helpful but optional.

 
After individuals and organizers have collected, analyzed and created intelligence, they must further process it in order to draw value. This is the stage of stripping out ‘nice-to-knows’ and creating actionable intelligence, from which clear organizational and personal strategies can be made. The benefits can include competitive advantages, process improvements, better products/services, improved relationships with others, brand evangelists, and best of all: more goodwill to spread around for all to enjoy.

 
Now that you know the process, let’s just make it simple: Start a new conversation today. Be honest and open-minded…see where it takes you.

Embrace polarity & celebrate duality.

Style is one element of product design. Its stimulation of the senses - visual, auditory, taste, olfactory, tactile - often makes it the most prominent feature. Its importance, however, is relative.

In product design & communication, the metaphorical colors we choose and their luminosity determine the sensory positioning. The best palette is found by questioning what matters most to the specific target audience and what appropriately fits your brand. But does the product/service absolutely need to be strongly positioned in one direction or another?

The answer is No. Effective differentiation simply implies holding a unique position with the perceiver’s mind.

Style can be fluid and multi-faceted. When considering the emotions we want the product to evoke, one can look at a variety of themes, their opposites, and ways they can be combined together. Perhaps the product is destined to have a particular sensory experience, based on a defined company image and set of values. Perhaps fashion and trends drive the product line, or the industry product category. In either case, style serves a single purpose, but its strategy and execution is dynamic.

The goal in ideation is to quickly generate a variety of competitive product concepts aligned with your brand values, portfolio fit, and product innovation strategy. While these are the criteria we’ll use for screening concepts later, a strong cognizance of them during ideation can inhibit the process activity: Exploration.

Consider polarities and their potentially combined layering & blending. After some recent creative brainstorming, here are some contrasting styles, emotions, and patterns that I’ve put together.

Antique, Historic	Modern, Contemporary
Humility; Courage; Happy; Joyous	Pride; Fear; Angry; Sad
Dark; Opaque; Rough; Sharp	Light; Translucent; Smooth; Rounded
Fast; Continuous	Slow; Intermittent
Accumulation; Indulgent; Embellished	Reduction; Modest; Simplistic
Strong; Hard; Heavy; Dense; Loud	Weak; Soft; Light; Loose; Faint
Spicy; Hot; Bitter	Bland; Mild; Sweet
Conservative; Conformed; Commodity	Liberal, Customized; Unique
Industrious, Productive	Relaxed, Lazy
Individualist	Collectivist
Technical; Scientific; Objective	Artistic; Experiential; Subjective
Deep; Low; Near	Shallow; High; Far

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What additional methods of comparing & contrasting do you use?

While marketers have debated the meaning of ‘Brand’ like the classical Greeks had with ‘Democracy’, or the French & Italians with ‘Love’, one contemporary author has nailed an excellent definition for our times. What follows is the first of an article series covering themes from the book: A Clear Eye for Branding, by Tom Asacker.

We choose brands based on the Feelings they evoke in us. Quality and Consistency were the traditional branding values. As advertising and new products proliferated, nowadays these values have shifted to Familiarity and Comfort (especially for low-involvement products with minor differences between brands).

A brand is a fluid and multi-faceted personal concept that contains all the ideas, values, stories, memories, perceptions, and feelings accumulated over time in people’s unconscious minds. It is conveyed by a wide variety of touchpoints. When assessing these, including the logo, one should critically ask if they’re appropriate for the feelings you want people to have. If it doesn’t matter, then it’s simply irrelevant.

To grow a brand, Tom says to:

Increase customers’ pleasant feelings - like discovery, fun, reward, a sense of belonging, increased self-esteem - which will condition desire. And eliminate their unpleasant ones - boredom, risk, pain, effort required, reduced esteem - which condition aversion. Spend time scrutinizing every sensory clue encountered by your customers so that the mental picture that they create about your offering - their sense based belief - is the accurate one.

What characterizes the purchasing behavior of strong brands? It comes to one or more of the following:

• Willingness to pay a premium when compared to alternatives
• A readiness to spend much effort to acquire it
• Continual repurchasing; not accepting a substitute, within reason.

If brands are based on people’s feelings, subject to change due to today’s continuous information flow and competition for attention, then it’s very important for an organization to be agile and looking out for their audience’s changing preferences. Study and put oneself in the mind of the customer, across different scenarios. Ethnography is but one means of research.

Great branding is thus about discovering and understanding WHY customers buy, based on their feelings, then STIMULATING those feelings. Tom adds:

Today’s customers insist on high quality, quick delivery and relatively low prices. And customer service is a dated, lean-back practice, where employees are paid, and technology is used, to be friendly, answer questions, and generally make the overall purchasing experience an agreeable one. Customer stimulation is a lean-forward strategy, designed to increase both sales and profitability.

Branding is a game of seduction that’s rewarding when you:

• Continually seek to know and understand your audience’s behaviors, desires, and expectations
• Look for ways to deepen your mutual ‘relationship’ with them
• Develop timely new products and services that improve their lives
• Stimulate your audience to try, purchase, and recommend your brand to others

Last Friday brought the premature death to the well regarded life of Nau, a clothing company.

Nau made fashionable clothing from sustainable & eco-friendly materials, and exclusively distributed them online and through retail stores in various U.S. cities. Their ethos resonated corporate social responsibility.

The preliminary autopsy report according to their press release pointed to a dissolution following an inability to procure additional capital investment, citing a risk-averse American financial market.

This week, I will gather my notes taken from a recent university seminar and will write about their story and operations.

As a fitting eulogy, I leave you with a small brochure that outlines their philosophy and can give you a personal glimpse into the company that was. May their energetic and caring spirit be carried on…

Click here to see the slideshow presentation

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Clorox and Green Supply Chains - The company faces some unique challenges with a few brands’ supply chains in making sure the end-product doesn’t get too expensive.
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DuPont Awards for Packaging Innovation - The big plastics and chemical company’s 20th award ceremony honors 7 winners and 3 notables for sustainable achievements & innovations in the use of renewable materials, effective recovery, energy efficiency and community benefit.
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Primo: Water Company with Bio-based Bottles - North Carolina based company uses bio-plastic PLA made from corn, to bottle the water it sells.
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Polylactic Acid (PLA) Article on Wikipedia - This outline describes what PLA is, and provides some links at the page bottom to other biodegradable polymers.
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TED Talks: The Omnivore’s Next Dilemma - Michael Pollen talks about nature and our relationship to it, from a food production and consumption perspective.
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5 Ways to Turn CO2 into Cash - Looking at ways to use carbon dioxide for profitable purposes.
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Aerogel: A Better Form of Insulation - An agent that can insulate 37 times better than fiberglass, may soon be a market-viable material due to recent breakthroughs that may reduce its production costs by 80%.
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Conscious Consumers in a Nutshell - Great article on green, natural, and health-minded consumers and their profiles.
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Eco-Patent Commons - Article on this initiative to build an online, searchable repository for patents that are donated by companies for royalty-free use by anyone, without need for a license or purchase.
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Wal-Mart Expands Environmental Activities with Chinese Suppliers - You know their name and how much they import. They’re leading the retail industry also in this green realm of procurement and operations.
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Wal-Mart and its Packaging Scorecard - These guys again? Yup, because it’s good for you to know how they are auditing their suppliers to make a difference in product shipping and packaging.
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Eco Trademark Trends - U.S. trademarks with environmental themes saw a big rise in applications for 2007.
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Tesco Trials Carbon Footprint Product Labels - Tesco’s is one of the world’s largest retailers. They’ve begun a pilot program with a few products that shows their environmental impact using data provided by the Carbon Trust, a British government-funded organization.
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Software that Provides Sustainable Analysis and Recommendations - SAS is the company. They use the Global Reporting Initiative framework for reporting on environmental, social and economic factors that will help firms like Cisco better analyze their efforts and build appropriate strategies and tactics.
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Organic Soap Maker Sues Other Firms over Greenwashing - Dr. Bronner’s lawsuit against some other personal care product manufacturers raises the question of what is ‘fair’ organic/natural labeling in the U.S.
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Thanks to GreenBiz.com for providing excellent coverage of news stories this last month. I hope to provide you with additional articles in the coming weeks.

Here is a look at my current reading list over the next few months. Not quite all the books, but most.

One of the best aspects of reading business, design, and communication books is all the advanced material so well explained and enlightening, that one just cannot meaningfully retain from magazines (as opposed to Journals). To learn the subjects even better, take notes and write yourself summaries that add personal relevance, related topics, and other contextual detail. The last thing you can do, is try to teach others what you learned - the passion will flow because at this point, you’ll understand the material so well and the story will be yours.

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What’s on your Reading List?

April 11th, I attended the local tour stop of Design Green Now, a seminar that explored green and sustainable product design & development. This article is Part 2 of a series that highlights the panelists, their presentations, and issues discussed during the Q&A.
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Nathan Vanhook
Art Director, Senior Wetsuit Designer
Body Glove

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Body Glove, a water sports equipment and clothing manufacturer, decided three years ago to develop an eco-friendly line of products as part of a first step in transitioning the firm. Nathan was part of the development team that began first with life jackets (aka Personal Flotation Devices), then later with wetsuits and shirts.

The primary goal was to replace the foam, Neoprene, with an alternative material that could provide the same elastic and insulating properties. Neoprene is a DuPont product that is a form of PVC (Polyvinyl Chloride), that has additives called Plasticizers to make it soft and flexible. While PVC has been widely used around the world to make a variety of products, the material has been under growing international scrutiny for the last 10 years. This is because some of these additives are bio-hazardous and have been shown to leech/offgas after initial production and over time. Additionally, PVC (like all plastics), is petroleum-based.

Nathan recalled to the audience his first experience visiting their manufacturing plant in Donghuang, China. While being an eye-opening experience in many regards, Nathan told how he entered a poorly-ventilated massive room filled with new life jackets. The air had a strong chemical smell; a few workers who were affixing tags and performing quality control, weren’t wearing any protective gear for handling nor breathing. The experience awakened Nathan to the sobering reality of China: low cost labor, short life cycle designs, no environmental regulations, and a massive impact on the earth in terms of manufacturing volume.

Body Glove was able to find in Japan, a suitable alternative made from organic compounds. While this was great, the foreign procurement would mean adding to the products’ life cycle mileage - a new aspect that simply now had to be accounted for. From materials’ origin to factory, U.S. warehouses, and on to local surf shops, the products had a total of 8,806 miles. Nathan explained that while eco-friendly materials are definitely one of the most important aspects of sustainable product design, one should think about the total travel distance in life cycle analyses.

When asked during the Q&A about tools and processes helpful to design & development, Nathan heavily promoted using the Internet as a global research tool for materials science information, alternative sources, applications, and suppliers. New developments and best practices in sustainable materials and construction are happening around the world; designers and architects can learn a lot by looking outside their borders.

In closing, Nathan mentioned the Iriquois native Americans considering the impact of their activities for the next seven generations - a wise and responsible forward-thinking philosophy that we as mankind should apply today.

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Design Green Now - Article Series:

Part One: Heidrun Mumper-Drumm

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For additional information about Nathan, please see his profile at DesignGreenNow.

I read a story today of a gentleman having came to San Francisco, and was unable to find a prepaid SIM card for his phone. This presented a big problem for him because he needed cellular service, but didn’t want to buy a new phone, nor pay overseas roaming fees. Prepaid SIM cards though, are difficult to find. American telecoms either sell service contracts combined with subsidized new phones (most often the case), OR monthly plans to customers with unlocked phones (seldom). For more information, please see Stopwatch Marketing by John Rosen and AnnaMaria Turano, p.76-82.

While I understand the economics and customer ‘lock-in’ strategy, I have two major contentions with this traditional business practice. One: It isn’t customer-oriented because people are not being given the freedom of handset model/maker choice; (Aside: Hey Alltel! This is a huge differentiation opportunity if you don’t already offer it).

Two: If new phone sales are subsidized through service plan changes, promotional upgrade offers, and new carrier signups, could that perhaps mean that Americans are more inclined to upgrade to new phones and dispose of old ones, in comparison to other countries?

As a result, Americans are not only subject to shorten their cell phone’s life cycle through great advertising and a personal desire to own a better phone, but ALSO through national carriers’ product marketing & sales models. What if an individual wants to sign up with a new carrier because they’ve moved, are seeking a better rate, the previous provider’s customer service sucks…whatever the reason? If they are happy with their current phone, but it came from a previous carrier, it is the owner’s responsibility to try and seek out someone to unlock their phone (if possible), and then come back.

According to my own personal experience, and from Stopwatch Marketing’s authors, the cellular service shopping experience is best characterized by reluctance (because of service plan complexity), and by a fast moving perception of time spent. With these factors at hand, it is no surprise that many individuals would see the option of purchasing their phone through non-traditional channels, or having phones unlocked through independent resellers, as too burdensome.

This presents an industry business model design with substantial negative externalities: a potentially higher per capita volume of cell phone e-waste in the United States, in comparison to other countries.

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What do you think?

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A model for concept development I put together, as part of a weekly series of info diagrams from different designers, marketers, and other creative types. The series is called “Think Draw Make”, the website is www.thinkdrawmake.com , and is organized by DT of DesignSojourn.com

Here is my official explanation of the diagram, as left by my comment at ThinkDrawMake:

My inspiration is from product development phases, with the understanding of ‘product’ as being wide open to include objects (physical and intangible) for commercial, nonprofit, personal, and communal use.

The word ‘Market’ may imply designing an object for commercial use only. However, it could be stretched so that we simply mean looking at non-competitive objects elsewhere in the world. This may be done for noting best practices, styling, and other inputs into concept development.

In the diagram, multiple ideas are thought out then each is examined against:

- Our Objective or Scope
- Quality (as a function of time, cost, and absolute value)
- Strategic Fit (organizational or personal values, culture, intended future direction)

If the idea passes that preliminary intuitive test, then it’s a good ‘Concept’. These will then be further explored and refined through detailed descriptions, models (drawings, 3d forms, etc.), research, and viability analysis.

The second screen simply asks which concepts are worth making, given our scope, their viability, attractiveness, and whatever constraints we may have (time, money, etc.).

Then we build prototypes and lastly, finished objects. In the diagram, we began with 5 ideas and ended up building 2. I don’t want to make the whole process seem too disciplined or difficult - but hey that’s life - to make great objects we have to be a little critical, you know? Money and time doesn’t grow on trees

Last Friday night, I attended the local tour stop of Design Green Now, a seminar that explored green and sustainable product design & development. This article is part of a series that highlights the panelists, their presentations, and issues discussed during the Q&A.

The moderator, Rob Curedale, is an industrial designer with 30 years experience in consumer products. He recounted to the audience his feelings on how designers’ relationships to their work have enlarged over the years from being aesthetics-oriented with a large attention for personal fame, to a holistic constraints-orientation that includes environmental and societal considerations with a greater concern for “Us”.
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Heidrun Mumper-Drumm
Adjunct Associate Professor, Graphic Design
Art Center College of Design - Pasadena, CA

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Sustainability starts in the creation phase. This means not only considering materials selection, but also being efficient in the concept/prototype development phase in terms of minimizing scrap waste, packaging, procurement distance, and general energy consumption.

The challenge now is in finding an excellent process model for sustainable design, because the traditional design process doesn’t support it. We need to go from a linear model focused on constraints and objectives within our immediate realm of influence in the value chain, to a complete life cycle model. That means considering the activities and indirect needs of everyone besides the end customer - manufacturer, distributor, retailer, 2nd/3rd-hand parties, and recyclers. It means looking at the product’s environment throughout its life - packaging, shipping, application, storage, disposal - and how it interacts with that environment (beneficial, neutral, detrimental).

At Art Center, they have a Color Material Trend Lab (CMTEL) established in 2005 with funding from Nokia, where students can learn about and explore using a wide variety of materials, and staff members can request additional information and samples from suppliers.

They also have an EcoCouncil, established by Art Center students as a weekly forum to discuss sustainable design topics, in addition to proposing & organizing research and community projects. The prominent interest area involves conducting Waste Stream Analyses of scrap materials, packaging, and trash by using process maps, journals, and mathematical formulas for extrapolating collected data into a forecasted life segment/cycle assessment.

When asked during the Q&A about the ability for capitalism and profit-mindedness to coexist with sustainable design thinking, Heidrun was a bit skeptical. The future holds a lot of opportunity for both fields, but don’t expect businesses to consider environmental stewardship for its own sake. The greater motivation for businesses in adopting sustainable thinking lies in reducing materials and operational expenses, while minimizing risk and product liability.

To promote responsible action and industry change, not just by leading product companies and innovators, regulation will be needed. This may involve:

• Restricting the use of certain materials, while providing incentives for others.
• Establishing stricter guidelines for manufacturing, storage, distribution, and reverse-logistics processes.
• Taxes and rebates for recycling, landfills, and other end-of-life cycle scenarios.

While sustainable thinking can be applied to many areas within a company’s operations, Life cycle analyses incorporated within the product concept development phase represent the best way forward. Briefly, they involve building multiple cost/benefit scenarios for concepts as a part of the Scoping, Business Case, or Product Design Strategy phases of product development.

In her closing statements, Heidrun gave the following recommendations to the audience:

• Avoid Greenwashing - There are going to be a lot of manufacturers out there using subjective labels and terms describing how environmentally conscious their companies, and safe their products, are. Whatever you say, be specific and honest.
• Perform a Life Cycle Analysis
• Do not fake the eco-friendliness of your product for the benefit of the design community or other value chain members. By only using a low percentage of friendlier materials or by mixing them with others that effectively create monstrous hybrids that cannot be recycled, and whose assets cannot be reclaimed, is a major disservice to this cause.

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Design Green Now - Article Series:

Part Two: Nathan Vanhook

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For additional information about Heidrun, please see her profile at DesignGreenNow.

After one week since Blogger Social, it’s been great looking back at the whole experience. The only general expectations I had would be that everyone would be really friendly and smart in their own regards. While this held true, there were other things I noticed and felt. In follow-up to being tagged by Ryan Barrett of CheapThrills, it is these feelings that I’d like to share:

• As much as I wanted to try to speak with everyone at least briefly, there just wasn’t enough time. But I damned made sure to do the best I could; only about 10 people got away because of different schedules, seating, timing, etc. There were some dear folks with whom I had wanted to spend more personal time with - our interaction was circumstantially brief - and which left me a little sad. However, this difference of wanted v. actual time used, ended up with me having excellent conversations and dialog with individuals - on an unanticipated intellectual or social plane, and a few times on a personal and extended basis.
   
• The informal blogger profile booklet really helped in quickly getting to know everyone and identifying individuals I had wanted to speak with. It was this complete picture of professional and personal background information, painted by an impartial 3rd party, that made everyone seem so human and approachable - regardless of what industry we came from, what stage of life we’re in, our relative ’success’ level, etc. Secondly, the informal profiles immensely helped shorten ’small talk to conversation’ cycle time (Yes, I am a process/productivity geek - time is valuable; let’s make the most of it).
   
• While there was a LOT of enthusiastic conversing going on, there were also a couple times when I felt general content and satisfaction in the air without the need for words during little mini-breaks; maybe a few folks were around us, but there was no awkward rift, no pressure to start conversation again right away - the small talk was truly genuine and had a pace of its own. That feeling was extremely comforting.
   
• Speaking with and listening to so many individuals from a variety of professional backgrounds and experiences, helped really exhibit the relative nature of all reality. In a mixed social setting with no professionally organized agenda (explicit and implied), we’ll all dramatically contribute to the very healthy and important virtue of open-mindedness, while seeing each others’ professions and point-of-views in new ways (or at least be more inclined to).
   
• I came away with a better understanding of what my unique passions are, where my strengths lie, in which direction I want to drive forward, and realistic idea of how to get there. What is my passion and career direction you may ask? It’s heavily leaning toward green marketing, innovation, and sustainable product development. But as I learned from a few folks, opening our minds to diverse and different work opportunities can also help us grow in ways perhaps we’ve never considered before. The path is never quite straight, nor must it be.
   
• Time is now more valuable than ever before - Any and all acquaintances and friends I decide to maintain online, must have some level of genuine ‘interestingness’ or geniality. Novelty is not an option (unless it’s so remarkable and entertaining, while not interfering with my ability to be professionally and socially productive). If I have an opportunity to develop a future relationship with someone I have only very weak ties now, I’ll let it develop on its own accord and timing.

With all that said, it was an amazing experience that I will cherish. For all the folks I met last weekend, previously ‘known’ and unknown, it was marvelous meeting you and I hope that we may remain in good company for a very long time.

Susan Bird, Tim Brunelle, Katie Chatfield, Matt Dickman, Luc Debaisieux, Mark Goren, Gavin Heaton, Sean Howard, CK, Valeria Maltoni, Drew McLellan, Doug Meacham, Marilyn Pratt, Steve Roesler, Greg Verdino, CB Whittemore, Steve Woodruff, Paul McEnany, Ann Handley, David Reich, Tangerine Toad, Kristin Gorski, Mack Collier, David Armano, Ryan Barrett, Lori Magno, Tim McHale, Gene DeWitt, Arun Rajagopal, Rohit Bhargava, Anna Farmery, Thomas Clifford, Lewis Green, Geoff Livingston, Kris Hoet, Connie Reece, Cece Lee, Toby Bloomberg, Seni Thomas, Darryl Ohrt, Joe Kutchera, Paul Dunay, Marshall Sponder, Chris Kieff, Tara Anderson, Jason Falls, Paul Soldera, Roberta Rosenberg, Saul Colt Todd Andrlik, Nathan Snell, Ryan Karpeles, Jennifer Laycock, Neil Vineberg, Cam Beck, Mike Arauz, Matthew Bailey, Heather Gorringe, John Rosen, Cathleen Rittereiser, Tamar Weinberg, Rita Perea, Linda Sherman, Matthew McDonald, Kaitlyn Wilkins, Terry Starbucker, Jennifer Berk, Jane Quigley, John Wall, Scott Monty, Kevin Horne, Virginia Miracle, Amanda Gravel, David Polinchock, Shashi Bellamkonda, David Berkowitz, and Vahe Habeshian

For all the dear individuals I know online, but whom I’ve not yet had the pleasure to meet or speak with, I look forward to an opportunity with you someday soon.

Mille Grazie e Arrivederci!

 
Just a little over a year ago, on April 4th, I began writing this blog.
 

Before jumping in, I spent a LOT of time commenting on blog posts (just about everywhere!) and getting to know the various individuals that write exceptionally well AND connect to their readers.
 

Then I began organizing the big blogroll you see in the right margin. Its prominence is intentional - many of these writers deserve attention for their passion; some of them have helped me come to where I am today - please explore!
 

I started off slow and didn’t write as often as I wanted to. Perfectionism haunted my spirit as I didn’t want to come off as a person writing blurbs and editorial. The purpose of an excellent blog is to flesh out what stirs excitement within you while providing a conversational atmosphere to share and learn from others.
 

After one year, it has been a fantastic experience. Thank-you for your kindness and acceptance of me. Special gratitude go to Mario Sundar and CK.
 

With that said, I leave you with a song from Yann Tiersen’s album: Les Retrouvailles , The title: Loin des Villes. The video compiled from one man, his brother, and his father traveling to see family in China. Enjoy!
 

 
[image credit: hazymat]

We’ve all seen this font before -it’s quite popular for use with books, magazines, posters, and billboards. The dead giveaway is the lack of serifs on the capital N’s top-left and bottom-right.

Trajan is an actual replica of ancient Roman letterforms found at the base of Trajan’s column in Rome. The specific style is called square capitals, and only uppercase letters are available. This typeface was used for inscriptions and signage for cultural events, decrees, imperial arches, architecture, etc. It was first painted on marble with a brush, followed by chiseling into the stone. Sometimes holes were bored into the etched type to support melted bronze subsequently poured in.

Here’s a quick mock book/movie title I’ve made with it - I was first thinking of going all silly and calling it “The Briefcase”, but “The Public Defender” looked better:

The name comes from the Roman emperor Trajan; the digital typeface was designed by Carol Twombly for Adobe in 1989.
Additional information available at: Wikipedia and Typophile

One more for the road…this video introduced me to the font and pokes fun at its ubiquity within the U.S. film industry:
Official YouTube Link

The Age of Conversation had a great debut last year. Through our writers’ and friends’ collective efforts, our proceeds-from-sales to the children’s charity Variety amounted to more than $11,000.

Now we’ve been able to bring this fine book to Amazon, and if you buy this book today, your effort will radically help drive the book’s attention up through Amazon’s charts -> leading to greater potential proceeds.

So if you don’t have a copy of last year’s classic, or know someone who might enjoy reading it (while helping out a great cause in the process), visit or forward on this special affiliate link:
http://tinyurl.com/2drj2x

In a major economic address at Cooper Union yesterday, Senator Barack Obama called for a modernization of our regulatory framework. He made the case that while markets are the engine of American progress, the government’s role as a steward is critical to the function of the free market.

While I was hearing the senator speak, I could not help but think about the parallels between the financial debacle today and the issues we’re facing with global trade. In his quest to get us out of a recession, Mr. Obama may have given us a framework to alleviate some of our international trade challenges:

1- Update Regulations: He says that “The evolution of industries often warrants regulatory reform – to foster competition, lower prices, or replace outdated oversight structures. Old institutions cannot adequately oversee new practices. Old rules may not fit the roads where our economy is leading… For the sake of our common prosperity, we needed to adapt to keep markets competitive and fair.” In 2006, Charles Fishman wrote something similar in his excellent book, “The Wal-Mart Effect”, in which he says that “[Wal-Mart’s] business model is built on the shopping cart, but in fact, Wal-Mart is a completely new kind of institution: modern, advanced, potent in ways we’ve never seen before. Yes, Wal-Mart plays by the rules, but…the rules are antiquated; they are from a different era that didn’t anticipate anything like Wal-Mart.” Fishman continues to explain that Wal-Mart is just a symbol of the era of mega corporations (i.e. ExxonMobil, GE, P&G, Toyota), whose operations are so large and dominant that they stand astride of Adam Smith’s market forces we rely on to harness them; suffocating inflation and driving manufacturing jobs overseas while mitigating their risk by developing new markets outside the US.

2- Risk Assessment: “Financial institutions must do a better job at managing risks. There is something wrong when boards of directors or senior managers don’t understand the implications of the risks assumed by their own institutions. It’s time to realign incentives and compensation packages, so that both high level executives and employees better serve the interests of shareholders. And it’s time to confront the risks that come with excessive complexity.” This reminds me of the various product safety scandals that the American consumer had to wake up to, due to risk assessments that many importers had failed to fully understand. U.S. manufacturers, wholesalers, distributors, or retailers who outsource from outside the U.S. need to ensure that the products they are bringing from overseas are safe. They are liable for distributing the tainted product even if they had no direct knowledge of the risk.

3- International Collaboration: “As we reform our regulatory system at home, we must work with international arrangements …The goal must be ensuring that financial institutions around the world are subject to similar rules of the road – both to make the system stable, and to keep our financial institutions competitive.” Here is where the U.S. needs to take leadership, and work with its trading partners bilaterally or through the WTO to create a regulatory framework, a chain of oversight covering the whole manufacturing and food-production process as well as labor and environmental laws, to regain consumer confidence and keep a fair playing field.

One thing I love about product design is the ability to combine separate objects into something new and practical. I like to stress that last adjective. The concept of novelty can be applied liberally, and usually implies a sense of amusement. However, the degree to which the novel product (or aspect thereof) is ‘useful’ (in purpose and time-span), can be highly questionable depending on the end user profile, and our own qualitative value assessment.

All of this analytical reasoning lead to the questions like:
What is of Value? For whom? Under what circumstances?

While user profiles are excellent tools to expand upon basic demographic and psychographic modeling, there are two major considerations that affect the attractiveness of a multifunctional product: space and time.

Space - This involves the environments in which we live, work, relax, commute, etc. It includes the amount of physical space you have, shared spaces, and their salient and secondary aspects.

Time - What we all value and may sometimes feel deprived of. This includes dedicated time for particular activities, shared time for multiple activities (like often found in the multitasking workplace), and random time for the unexpected (pleasant, neutral, undesirable) situations and activities.

When examining both of these considerations in a particular context, look for what your allowances and constraints are. Doing this will help you find an opportunity to take advantage of.

Lifestyle changes (gradual and sudden), will serve as catalysts for utility and value in multifunctional products. Maybe we already have individual products that can currently do their job well, but in the new circumstance or lifestyle change, a single product with increased functionality that allows for time & space improvements can be of moderate to significant value.

One area where time and space are often limited is in urban areas, where living spaces tend to be smaller, resources and amenities may be geographically dispersed, reliance on public transit is greater, and people can tend to live faster. An additional factor that affects time and space is the blurring line between work and leisure. Flexible working hours and more individuals working from home has created opportunities for manufacturers to create products that can be catered for both environments.

Where there is a user will, there is a way. Change will force us to be creative - whether there’s a commercially available and affordable solution to the little things and bigger issues in our lives, or not. It is in this intersection where ethnographic research holds large value - identifying behaviors and looking for opportunities.

While I’ve liked Futura for a while, especially having seen it around