The Doodle Revolution

In 1996, Switzerland hosted the World Economic Forum. Topics such as the oil crisis and other global issues were discussed by the world’s top leaders. At the end of the conference, a doodle drawn by former prime minister, Tony Blair, was found. The doodle was psychoanalyzed by graphologists who claimed Blair was aggressive and unstable. The media and public were in an outrage, because it appeared that Blair was trivializing the serious issues by doodling. In the end, the doodle ended up belonging to Bill Gates.

For the most part, doodling has been given a bad rap. It’s perceived as inappropriate behavior in almost any learning environment as well as most businesses. Sunni Brown, leader of The Doodle Revolution and author of Game Storming, is working hard to change this cultural bias.

Brown argues that people doodling are actually paying more attention. They are doing it as a pre-emptive measure to stop from losing focus. Research has proven that information is retained more efficiently when combining stimuli. Doodling helps because you are engaging four types of stimulation: visual, auditory, reading/writing, and kinesthetic. Several studies are also starting to pop up supporting Brown’s opinion. Jackie Andrade, a professor at the University of Plymouth, published a study finding a 29 percent increase in information retention gained by doodlers.

As a fellow doodler, it’s comforting to know that there are others out there who process information the same way I do. You can watch Brown discuss and defend doodlers in her recent TED talk here.

Occupy Wall Street and the Internet

I've been reading a lot of critisim about OWS lately, specifically about how the movement is "lacking a consistent message." All of this negativity got me thinking about successful movements in the past and how they positioned their demands. I don't think there was any difference between then and now besides one huge factor - the internet. Thanks to the internet, we're able to see OWS from so many different angles through so many different voices, and I hate hearing people discount the cause because of it.

Douglas Rushkoff, writer for CNN, wrote an opinion article that really expressed how I was feeling in ways I could not. I posted a portion of his article below, but I urge you to read the whole thing on CNN. The photo above was taken by an amazing photographer named Dylan Hollingsworth. If you don't live in New York, please take a minute to look through the album and see what's going on up here.

"It is difficult to comprehend a 21st century movement from the perspective of the 20th century politics, media, and economics in which we are still steeped. In fact, we are witnessing America's first true Internet-era movement, which -- unlike civil rights protests, labor marches, or even the Obama campaign -- does not take its cue from a charismatic leader, express itself in bumper-sticker-length goals and understand itself as having a particular endpoint.

Are they ready to articulate exactly what that problem is and how to address it? No, not yet. But neither are Congress or the president who, in thrall to corporate America and Wall Street, respectively, have consistently failed to engage in anything resembling a conversation as cogent as the many I witnessed as I strolled by Occupy Wall Street's many teach-ins this morning. There were young people teaching one another about, among other things, how the economy works, about the disconnection of investment banking from the economy of goods and services, the history of centralized interest-bearing currency, the creation and growth of the derivatives industry, and about the Obama administration deciding to settle with, rather than investigate and prosecute the investment banking industry for housing fraud.

Anyone who says he has no idea what these folks are protesting is not being truthful. Whether we agree with them or not, we all know what they are upset about, and we all know that there are investment bankers working on Wall Street getting richer while things for most of the rest of us are getting tougher. (...) Occupy Wall Street is meant more as a way of life that spreads through contagion, creates as many questions as it answers, aims to force a reconsideration of the way the nation does business and offers hope to those of us who previously felt alone in our belief that the current economic system is broken."

SXSW Interactive: The Future & Evolution of Online Dating

Below is my first ever proposal to speak at South by Southwest. There were over 3,000 submissions (almost 1,000 more than last year) and there are only 500 slots available. The public vote is open from now until September 2nd. If my idea interests you, please take a minute to sign up and vote for it here.

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Idea:

"The 90’s introduced adolescents to the wonders of dial-up Internet, screen names, and the pursuit of digital romance. The only problem was we never truly knew who was on the other end of the screen. Today, there is an increased level of transparency thanks to the help of social networks and dating sites. We now share our real names, photos, and tidbits of personal information. Since the beginning, dating sites have used search algorithms to connect people, however little has changed since then. These engines leverage information people provide to create connections, but what if the information submitted isn't true? Sites such as Match.com are starting to evolve their methods by pairing search algorithms with user behavior to provide more accurate recommendations. This presentation will give a nostalgic view of the past, cover best practices, and include video snippets of interviews with leaders in the digital dating industry as well as couples who met online to provide a unique consumer perspective."

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Eli Pariser gave a very inspiring TED talk back in May. He said, "as web companies strive to tailor their services to our personal tastes, there's a dangerous unintended consequence: We get trapped in a "filter bubble" and don't get exposed to information that could challenge or broaden our worldview." The situation is almost identical with online dating. If dating algorithms continue to focus on tailoring their recommendations to people then where does that leave spontaneity and chance?

The Joshua Bell Experience

A man sat at a metro station in Washington DC and started to play the violin (...) He played six Bach pieces for about 45 minutes. During that time, since it was rush hour, it was calculated that thousands of people went through the station (...) The one who paid the most attention was a 3 year old boy. His mother tagged him along, hurried but the kid stopped to look at the violinist. Finally the mother pushed hard and the child continued to walk turning his head all the time. This action was repeated by several other children. All the parents, without exception, forced them to move on.

In the 45 minutes the musician played, only 6 people stopped (...) When he finished playing and silence took over, no one noticed it. No one applauded, nor was there any recognition. No one knew this but the violinist was Joshua Bell, one of the best musicians in the world. He played one of the most intricate pieces ever written with a violin worth $3.5 million dollars.

I've only been living in New York for about seven months, but I've noticed that people tend to disconnect themselves from their environment. I've seen people walk past some of the most amazing musicians on train platforms and not even bat an eye. I just wish people would slow down and take time to see and hear all the amazing things happening around them. The video above was a performance I filmed at Columbus station around 2:30 am. Hope you enjoy it. You can read the rest of the article about Joshua Bell here.

Happily Ever After

Social media has no understanding of anything aside from the connections between individuals and the ceaseless flow of time: No beginnings, and no endings. These disparate threads of human existence alternately fascinate and horrify that part of the media world that grew up on topic sentences and strong conclusions. This world of old media is like a giant steampunk machine that organizes time into stories. I call it the Epiphanator, and it has always known the value of a meaningful conclusion. The Epiphanator sits in midtown Manhattan and clunks along, at Condé Nast and at the Times and in Rockefeller Center. Once a day it makes a terrible grinding noise and spits out newspapers and TV shows. Once a week it spits out weeklies and more TV shows. Once a month it produces glossy magazines. All too often it makes movies, and novels.

At the end of every magazine article, before the "■," is the quote from the general in Afghanistan that ties everything together. The evening news segment concludes by showing the secretary of State getting back onto her helicopter. There's the kiss, the kicker, the snappy comeback, the defused bomb. The Epiphanator transmits them all. It promises that things are orderly. It insists that life makes sense, that there is an underlying logic.

The excerpt above basically says that old school media has trained our brains to expect a conclusion at the end of every story. The problem with today's new media, i.e. Facebook, is that it doesn't provide us with that luxury. Instead, we get an infinite stream of information that goes in no particular direction or builds up to any real meaning. You can read the rest of the article on NY Magazine.

Please Don't Like This

The "like" button began on the website FriendFeed in 2007, appeared on Facebook in 2009, began spreading everywhere from YouTube to Amazon to most major news sites last year, and has now been officially embraced by Google as the agreeable, supportive and more status-conscious "+1." As a result, we can now search not just for information, merchandise and kitten videos on the Internet, but for approval.

Just as stand-up comedians are trained to be funny by observing which of their lines and expressions are greeted with laughter, so too are our thoughts online molded to conform to popular opinion by these buttons. A status update that is met with no likes (or a clever tweet that isn't retweeted) becomes the equivalent of a joke met with silence. (...) And so we don't show our true
selves online, but a mask designed to conform to the opinions of those around us.

Wallstreet Journal knocked it out of the park with this one. You can read the rest here.

God Grew Tired Of Us

Above is a five minute clip from the 2006 National Geographic documentary, God Grew Tired Of Us. The film follows a few Sudanese refugees experiencing America for the first time. The initial footage moved me in ways I can't explain. It's streaming on Netflix, so you know I've already added it to my queue. I hope you will too. Big ups to Neatorama for posting this up.

Paul Haggis vs. the Church of Scientology

 
“A major cause of mankind’s problems began 75 million years ago when the planet Earth, then called Teegeeack, was part of a confederation of ninety planets under the leadership of a despotic ruler named Xenu. “Then, as now, the materials state, the chief problem was overpopulation.” Xenu decided “to take radical measures.” The documents explained that surplus beings were transported to volcanoes on Earth. “The documents state that H-bombs far more powerful than any in existence today were dropped on these volcanoes, destroying the people but freeing their spirits—called thetans—which attached themselves to one another in clusters.” Those spirits were “trapped in a compound of frozen alcohol and glycol,” then “implanted” with “the seed of aberrant behavior. When people die, these clusters attach to other humans and keep perpetuating themselves.”

The New Yorker recently published an article about Paul Haggis, one of Scientology's most prominent former members. The piece covers how Haggis entered Scientology, the history of L. Ron Hubbard (Scientology's founder), contreversy within the organization, and why Haggis denounced it. Above is an excerpt of the article explaining what Scientologists believe in.

The article is pretty beefy, coming in at 26 pages. I read about four or five pages a night before I went to bed. Is Scientology a cult or a legit religion? Everyone has their own opinion, but this article definitely sheds some light on the organization's darker side.You can read the article on the New Yorker's site here.

From Dallas to New York

Got an offer to work at an advertising agency in New York City. I started January 10th and have been busy getting used to the change. I literally got the offer two weeks before I moved, so you can imagine the size of my to do list before I left Dallas.

Anyways, I know things have been a little quiet. I've been out and about taking advantage of all the things going on in the city, plus work takes up a big chunk of my days as well. It kinda sucks because I don't have as much time to browse all my favorite blogs.

For those who keep visiting, I appreciate it. I'm sure I'll fall back into the rythm of posting very soon. Got a couple posts I'm gonna put up right after I post this one. Cheers.

(picture taken from my iPhone in Hearst Tower during social media week)

A Rose By Any Other Name

No one in the naming world has generated more envy than a boutique firm called Lexicon. You may not recognize the name. But Lexicon has created 15 billion-dollar brand names, including BlackBerry, Dasani, Febreze, OnStar, Pentium, Scion, and Swiffer.

Consider its recent work for Colgate, which was preparing to launch a disposable mini toothbrush. (...) Lexicon founder and CEO David Placek's (...) asked his network of linguists -- 70 of them in 50 countries -- to start brainstorming about metaphors, sounds, and word parts that connote lightness. Meanwhile, he asked another two colleagues within Lexicon to help. But he kept these two in the dark about the client and the product. Instead, he gave this team -- let's call them the excursion team -- a fictional mission. He told them that the cosmetics brand Olay wanted to introduce a line of oral-care products and it was their job to help it brainstorm about product ideas.

Notice what's missing from the Lexicon process: the part when everyone sits around a conference table, staring at the toothbrush and brainstorming names together. ("Hey, how about ToofBrutch -- the URL is available!") Instead, Lexicon's leaders often create three teams of two, with each group pursuing a different angle. Some of the teams, blind to the client and the product, chase analogies from related domains. For instance, in naming Levi's new Curve ID jeans, which offer different fits for different body types, the excursion team dug into references on surveying and engineering.
 
Fast Company gives us a quick look at how Lexicon goes about picking a name for some of the biggest brands we know today. Not sure how you feel about their process, but I love how they approach a problem from various angles rather than combining all efforts in a single direction. You can read the full article on their site here.

How To Give Better Feedback

Be Direct With Your FeedbackThere’s only one way to take “This work sucks.” There are many ways to take “I’m not sure this is doing it for me.” And while the former may not be good feedback, per se, it certainly leaves no question that there’s a problem that needs addressing. Perhaps you can find a less blunt way to get your displeasure across, but leave it nice and clear. Personally, I’d rather have the clarity and I can deal with the bluntness, but I’ve been told I’m an asshole.

It’s Not ArtFirst rule of design feedback: what you’re looking at is not art. It’s not even close. It’s a business tool in the making and should be looked at objectively like any other business tool you work with. The right question is not, “Do I like it?” but “Does this meet our goals?” If it’s blue, don’t ask yourself whether you like blue. Ask yourself if blue is going to help you sell sprockets. Better yet: ask your design team. You just wrote your first feedback question.

Mule, a design studio in San Fran, lays out a few ways to give proper design feedback. Some of the things may only apply to design, but IMO most of the post can trascend to any part of our daily work lives. You can read the entire list at their website here.

Don't Be An Ass

Have you ever felt like you were constantly surrounded by idiots or that you were superior to those around you? If either applies, then you may be a huge jerk and not even know it. Eric Schwitzgebel, a philosophy professor at the University of California at Riverside, shared his opinions on what makes a jerk on his blog recently. Here's an excerpt:

Thinking of other people as idiots plays into jerkhood in two ways: The devaluing of others' perspectives is partly constitutive of jerkhood. And perhaps less obviously, it provides a handy rationalization of why others aren't participating in your jerkish behavior. Maybe everyone is waiting their turn in line to get off the freeway on a crowded exit ramp and you (the jerk) are the only one to cut in at the last minute, avoiding waiting your turn (and incidentally increasing the risk of an accident and probably slowing down non-exiting traffic). If it occurs to you to wonder why the others aren't doing the same you have a handy explanation in your pocket -- they're idiots! -- which allows you to avoid more uncomfortable potential explanations of the difference between you and them.

I know a few people, including myself, who sometimes think that they're one step ahead of the dummies. Staying on this train of thought can be extremely dangerous because a) it underestimates those around you, and b) it gives you a very myopic view on life. I'm not here to dole out life lessons, but it would benefit all of us to slow down and eat a slice of humble pie now and then. You can read this full post on his blog here.

Tips To Write Better

Copy Blogger has five tips to help you write better copy. The two that I have personally found the most useful are numbers one and two. Here’s an excerpt of the post:

1. Write drunk; edit sober
Now you don’t have to take this literally. I don’t really mean you should be downing rum as your fingers meander with increasing sluggishness and inaccuracy over your keyboard. (...) Better to put too much personality in and have to edit it out later than not put enough in to begin with. When you write, make sure you have some passion for your topic — and then just tell your reader what you want to say. Don’t self-consciously write. Just tell.

2. Sleep on it
(...)Simply put: You can improve any piece of writing by letting it sit overnight. Look, I know you’re in a hurry. I know you’re really excited about what you just wrote. So am I. (...) In the cold light of a new day, all writing seems slightly less marvelous and slightly more open to improvement. (...) You’ll see that what you thought was a flawless masterpiece could actually do with a tweak here and a sharp cut there. The changes you make at this stage are 80% of what you need to turn good copy into magnificent copy.

Previously: Write like you design

Same Old

I took a break from blogging for a few different reasons: lack of time, disinterest, etc. I guess you could say the main reason was that I was tired of seeing people repost the same big stories over and over every week. Towards the end of the past couple months I was noticing a trend. I wasn't posting as much because I was trying to avoid popular stories. Not necessarily because they were bad, but because they were everywhere else.

The second biggest reason for the break was because I simply wasn't feeling inspired anymore. I found myself browsing three or four different ad blogs at a time without finding anything worth reposting. Back in the day I used to find one to two posts per page on a blog that would blow me away. Now everything sort of blends together and sounds the same.

My plan is to continue to repost things I find interesting online but I want to add a little something extra. I've always been envious of blogs that produce solely original content. It takes a lot of effort to write a concise and thoughtful post on a regular basis, believe me I've tried.

I'm a bit hesistant to share my thoughts because I dont want to be misjudged or misinterpreted. I'll start off light and hopefully as time moves forward I'll find my voice and be able to share what I'm thinking more effectively.

Thanks for continuing to read Sell or Else. - Shon

The Man Who Makes Your iPhone

The colossus that Gou (pronounced "Gwo") runs today started with a $7,500 loan from his mother. His first world headquarters was a shed he rented in 1974 in a gritty Taipei suburb called Tucheng, which means Dirt City in Mandarin. Gou, then 23, had done three years of vocational training and served in the military. He then worked for two years as a shipping clerk, where he got a firsthand view of Taiwan's booming export economy and figured he ought to stop pushing paper and get into the game. With the cash from his mother, he bought a couple of plastic molding machines and started making channel-changing knobs for black-and-white televisions. His first customer was Chicago-based Admiral TV, and he soon got deals to supply RCA, Zenith, and Philips.

Bloomberg Businessweek recently published a piece about the rise of Foxconn and it's founder, Terry Gou. The article pulls readers in by addressing the company's eleven recent suicides, but it also provides a detailed account of how Gou's 900,000+ employee empire came into existance. It's easy for us to buy a product and not think about the lengths it took to get here. We're more concerned (myself included) with the next generation gadget rather than who assembled it. This is your chance to get an idea of what it takes to make something like the fourth generation iPhone possible. You can read the full article on their website here.

Following Yourself

My streak of avoiding public school bathroom stalls came to a thunderous and emphatic end in seventh grade. Behind a locked metal door, I sat on a cracked, black toilet seat and let my bell bottom corduroys wrinkle around my ankles. The bathroom door opened. I heard the sound of steel-toed bootsteps. Big Paul paused in front of my stall. I could see the dusty and dented tips of his size fourteen boots. One foot lifted and a second later my stall door was violently kicked open. Big Paul glanced at the waxy toilet paper squares I used to maintain my last stitch of privacy and then looked up, grinned and said, “What’s up, Fatty?” I immediately began another streak of avoiding public school bathroom stalls.

Although that moment was traumatic, I consider myself one of the lucky ones. For me, junior high eventually ended and I never saw or heard of Big Paul again. Kids today don’t have it so easy. While they still go through the familiar childhood transitions, the process of dusting off the past and reinventing oneself is a much more complicated process. When today’s junior high students move on to high school or from high school to college, they are – thanks to Facebook and other social networks — being followed by their digital selves.

This post really made me think about how differently we all view social networks. I've always seen it as a means of reconnecting to keep in touch, but what about to kids that are growing up with it? Dave Pell makes some interesting observations on his site. Read the rest of this short post here

Morning News

I took this picture last Friday morning at a Starbucks off of 5th avenue. I was sitting next to this guy having a coffee when his reading choice (or should I say choices) caught my eye. I liked how he was getting his morning news from his iPad and the newspaper. It made happy to see the two chilling side by side. I love how some people choose to enjoy the best of both new and old media. Here's to hoping that the two can coexist for a long time.

Commenting Is Back Up

I had been getting e-mails a month or so ago letting me know that people were having trouble commenting on my blog. I tried fixing the problem but nothing was working. I turned off the comments until I could figure out a solution. I think I've finally fixed it, so comments are back on!

picture above: the entire fictional island from Lost mapped out. wow. (click pic to view in full)

Underground NYC

Author, Lindsey Scheider, gives a first hand look at the people responsible for bringing water, subway lines, sewers, and gas mains to the residents of New York City. The pictures are absolutely incredible. She discusses how the tunnels are made and the risks the workers take on a daily basis to make it happen. You can read the article and see the pictures here. Just click to enter and flip through it like a virtual magazine.

WWDC 2010

Here's a link to Engadet's coverage of Steve Job's entire keynote. There's tons of coverage over the new iPhone, but he also dropped a few other noteworthy updates as well (iAds, Netflix, PDF capabilities, etc).