thinking visually

how do you think? visually i hope.

unknowingly, i started doing this last august when at work, i devised a few visuals to illustrate some key strategic points. only after that did i come across a gentleman who is a master at this art. his name is david armano and not only does he have a knack for coming up with great new ideas, but visually representing them. once i saw his work, i was converted.

here's armano's syllabus on thinking visually:

Thinking Visually

View more presentations from David Armano. (tags: storytelling presentation)

i'm writing this because the last 3 weeks of my job has been consumed with one project, that at every chance, i tried to apply visual thinking. i'd like to believe that the work was better and the points were made more effectively because of it.

thinking visually is all about communicating an idea not entirely through words, but with images diagrams, art, photos or line art. it's weaving these elements into a clear, cohesive and meaningful representation of a thought or idea. it captures the idea and all the context into a concise snapshot that people can easily recall. think of it as a packed box - everything goes into the box but simply looking at it with 'kitchen' written on it tells the entire story.

there's no official rulebook to thinking visually, but here are a few considerations that i came up with:

• words can't always be replaced, but use them sparingly
• save it for the big ideas so they stay powerful
• it's not just putting a picture on the page
• aesthetics complete the sale
• distill them, make them unconfusing and focused
• use words as tags and let the visual explain
• they don't always stand on their own - add context
  

armano has the gift of being a good designer and artist, which makes his visuals pop. unfortunately, i don't have those gifts. my tool of choice is a powerpoint. the latest version has some great tools embedded that will take you far in thinking and expressing visually.

i think this is a powerful way of applying yourself that makes what you have to say more compelling. it's more than just impressing people with creating eye candy, but conveying the idea in an interesting, thought provoking way. people will take more notice to your ideas, not because it looks pretty, but because the idea has been presented in such a way that is intuitive and more impactful than just words. from a guy who knows little brevity, visually thinking is a great way to condense what normally takes me a hundred words to do.

here are a couple of resources from armano himself that will start you off down the right path:

• blog posts
• flickr archive
• viz think
  

facebook's missed revenue

today facebook revamped their fan pages, the promise being they will be more socially integrated. when fist launched, the fan pages were promised to be social and bring companies and brands more into the fold of people's networks where the sponsored groups stood outside. well that didn't really happen and they are evolving again to try and fulfill that promise.

this time they got it right. but their approach is foolish and will likely end up ruining the space.

this move, while a great opportunity for brands and companies, is another in a string of missteps and bad plays by facebook. let's set it up. facebook, while experiencing tremendous growth, is struggling to make money. a recent lawsuit against them revealed that their valuation has been significantly downgraded from what was previously thought and what microsoft bought a 1% stake in. bill and ballmer can't be very happy. facebook's struggles are around monetizing the ecosystem they've created and the economy is aggravating the situation as advertisers are vacillating to spend advertising dollars.

so what's the problem with the new fan pages? well, facebook again missed a huge opportunity to add revenue streams and make their business viable as a free, ad-supported platform. this isn't the first time they've stumbled in actually bringing in money and not just bleeding it.

remember applications? yeah, no one really uses them anymore. the opportunity they blew then was not charging developers and companies a fee for developing and listing them. instead, they opened it up to everyone and that lead to their demise. they became trite spam engines that people stopped using after their initial glow wore off. after the last site design overhaul, they were relegated to a place of far diminished presence and importance. i don't lay blame on the developers for creating crappy apps, but facebook for opening the floodgates and allowing crappy apps to proliferate. they needed to be the gatekeepers to ensure quality control and real value was there for users. without a vested interest (ie. revenue stream) they had no reason to protect the space and as such it was ruined.

then there's the ads themselves, the only revenue stream they have. they aren't making any strides to make those much more compelling or interesting. i mean, it's a tiny static picture and 135 characters. not very interesting or compelling. they were okay when they were in the news-feed, but are now relegated off to the side where they can be ignored much easier. they would argue their engagement ads are the answer, but those still live in a place not many people care about. want proof, look at declining CTR and CPMs. also the ads that appear on your profile page and elsewhere are very often of poor quality and carry messages that are little more than spam companies.

facebook connect could probably be a pay model as well, but they missed out on that too. and while we're on missteps, let's also mention their most recent debacle around their terms of service.

that brings us to the new facebook fan pages. what facebook has done is make these look and act exactly like a person's profile. a fan page can now do all the things we do and have those actions be visible to the fans in their news-feed. that's a powerful proposition. brands and companies now fully integrated into their fans social network.

it's ripe for abuse. brands need to be very conscious of how they use these new communication tools. it'll be very easy to over-use them and spam the fans. and it's open to everyone again to do as much as they want.

how could this be averted so the entire facebook ecosystem doesn't become infested with overzealous brands turning people off from even logging on? well a pay model of course. this would have the side effect of actually bringing in money to the company.

i'm thinking first a pay to play system where there is a yearly fee for companies to create fan pages. something in the neighborhood of $50K to $100K. this is fairly nominal for any company to enter the space which provides them with such a robust offering to communicate with their consumers and most ardent followers. it also serves to weed out those who would likely abuse it.

second, to protect the space from over-use and ensure that the people who are there aren't spammed by the brands and companies they are fans of. the revenue model is a pay-per-interaction fee. so every post, or photo added, or comment made, anything really, comes at some kind of fee so companies are smarter about using them.

we could try and pass on the operating expense to the users and make it a pay model, but we've all been trained to expect to use facebook for free. so it will be hard to make that change. so it falls on an ad supported model or more precisely an advertiser supported model.

i'm just fascinated that facebook can continue to stumble through their operations like this. mark zuckerberg is a smart guy, but he is not a smart businessman. he's not proving to be good at making smart moves to make his company viable. i'll be waiting to see how companies use this new space and how facebook could have to backtrack because of abuse.

your credit sucks

apparently, you need to know your credit score - desperately. so a few pages browsed on the web in recent weeks would make you believe given the recent preponderance of credit score ads. that's only part of the problem. it seems we've taken a time warp back to 1995 when crappy online ads with flashy line art, blinking incessantly and generally looking like a 4th grader's attempt at making an ad for their daddy's company ruled the world. everything old is new again, and shoddy online ads have made a comeback.

here's a colossal collage of credit crap:


i guess i can't fault sites for accepting these ads. they are there to sell banner space and usually that's on a first come first serve basis. the credit score people were the first to the table, or maybe the only ones. you'd think that was untrue as the web was the one advertising vehicle everyone thought would weather this financial storm better than the rest, but the sheer volume of these ads has a different story to tell (something to be argued when numbers are available).

making a buck is one thing so you can be around when the dust settles on the recession/depression, but building a brand is quite another. i'm just going to put it out there: sites that accept these ads are destroying the advertising potential for everyone. and i mean for both sides of the ad game.

for advertisers, this just makes online ads even more of a turn-off for a site's audience and potential consumers. the few ruin it for the rest. ads become wallpaper even more and their impact lessens considerably. even their strength as branding vehicles erodes.

on the other side, the site itself, which is actually a brand that needs to be cultivated as any other. slowly these websites are compromising the quality of their brand and product. they are make it known that they have low standards and are in this for the revenue - value to consumers isn't a factor. that's a big miss. and it makes your site look ridiculous.

dare i say, websites have a responsibility to both their audience and advertisers - neither the site can survive without - to weed these types of ads out. it's not benefiting either. here's a handful of solutions to keep your sites at a high standard and not with a 'sell-out' plaque on it.'

1. offer discounts to higher grade advertisers to encourage them back in the market
2. reduce the number of ad units on the page. then each ad has more impact, position and effect. that and your site isn't junked up with meaningless ads
3. run house ads instead
4. bonus key clients more impressions
5. just run nothing, at least it will be cleaner
   

defending a-rod

alex rodriguez came clean yesterday on the allegations of steroid use. the right move for a bad decision. but does it matter? can he ever escape this? is his career tarnished forever?

i'll admit, when the mitchell report came out, or even before when bonds was under constant scrutiny for steroid use, i thought a-rod was exempt. i felt that he was one player who was above performance enhancing drugs. he's a pure talent, and still is. i guess jose canseco got it right a while back when he implicated rodriguez, but there was no evidence and no further scrutiny. i dismissed that as just more of canseco's wild accusations to cling to what little fame he had left. sorry i doubted you jose. you gave me no reason to, ever.

i'm in the camp to say that 3 years of performance enhancing drug use does not tarnish rodriguez's career. he is a natural talent. he was productive and a star before he took p.e.d.'s and was the same afterwards. look at his stats and he was just as productive prior to and after his steroid years. you could argue that without them he would have been just as effective. it's negligible. doesn't make it right that he took them, albeit under a cloud of non-policy by mlb, just that he shouldn't be forever villainized for his actions. if you want, when his career is done, wipe those 3 years from the record and he is still hall of fame worthy, and rightly considered one of the best ever.

the way rodriguez has played this out is that right way. he's admitting his actions, incurring the wrath, and seeking forgiveness from the court of public opinion. this is something no other player has done. not mcgwire, who refused to talk about it. not bonds, who says he never knowingly took them. not clemens or palmeiro who fervently deny it. he is trying to make it right. he's admitted fault, he's accepted his errors, and he will live with how he is going to be perceived. that shows a lot of strength of chracter. not just to come clean, but to have stopped using when he did.

i genuinely believe he is sorry for his actions and regrets them (some will say regret getting caught). he is human, and exercised poor judgement. rodriguez was sincere, and made himself accountable. he should be forgiven. if not forgiven, then not have his entire career diminished for it.

still there's three issues with all this which don't sit right with me.
1) not for public knowledge
the drug tests that led to this outing were supposed to be anonymous, sealed by court order. how did these test results get out, especially when the tests themselves and the players names were never supposed to be linked and lived in separate databases? i'm not trying to justify the actions of any of those 104 players, but they had a right to have this information protected.

the point is, steroid use was rampant and mlb was trying to stop it. the testing survey was done to gauge just how pervasive it is in order to establish rules and disciplinary actions. it was accepted practice and rodriguez, along with scores of others, were part of it because no rules were in place to govern it. good judgement and morality aside, that was the era these players were in and it was common practice. with all the influences (manager, trainers, owners, agents, etc) it was not hard to play the game.

the effect all this is having is to sling more shit at baseball and generally increase the ire around the sport. i don't think that's needed. mlb needs to reconcile with it's fans and people in general and this is a step backwards form that. i'm not saying brush it under the carpet, but the lessons have been learned, the course is correcting, let's move forward.

2) the faultless mlb
mlb has, and rightly so, only been praised for cleaning up the sport, while not being accountable or admonished for their role in the 'steroid era.' it was their inaction, non-policy, and general state of denial that led to an atmosphere where performance enhancing drugs were able to be as epidemic as they were. don't just tear the players down when you can't look in the mirror and accept your role in this situation, mlb. they too easily throw their players, their product mind you, under the bus while throwing their hands up and saying 'don't look at me.'

superbowl ads - fading away

is the superbowl still the cultural beacon for advertising anymore? i vote no.

because i live in canada, we don't get the privilege of seeing the real superbowl ads as they happen. i mean we broadcast the superbowl and try to parade our ads on it, but there isn't the fanfare, novelty and expense associated in doing so. thankfully the internet has made this cultural fascination more accessible. and therein lies why i don't think the superbowl is much more than the game itself anymore. we as marketers are losing the one day where advertising is elevated to a cultural phenomenon, spectacle and curiosity for all the masses to stand up and take notice of our great work. the day where everyday folk put aside their trite statements of "i don't pay attention to ads" and embrace the brandsell as entertainment.

so the day after the superbowl i mosey over to whatever site is making a big stink about the superbowl ads so that i can see for myself. but ever since the first media rumblings of the superbowl bubbled up in the media this year and last, it nagged at me that it's just not the same anymore. the game has changed.

not the destination it was
no longer do we accept content channels making destination viewing. a fixed time and channel for content doesn't hold the viewing audience hostage with the emergence of pvr's, torrents, online video and quicker to market dvd's. the new distribution systems make it so that we are not subject to someone else's schedule, network or otherwise.

we're not beholden to one day of the year anymore to see great work. it's out there, everywhere. brand produced or user generated. hours after the superbowl (or sooner), every ad was already circulating around the internet. by the following day, every media outlet and every joe with a recording device and the ability to encode it as online video has uploaded all the commercials and everyone else has watched them online.

so it doesn't need the big day. if advertisers created great ads and used non-broadcast distribution methods, the pickup is the same. with greater access it becomes less forced on the consumer and more in keeping with their preference to view as they choose. consumers can be more selective and an ad in the superbowl may not be that place anymore. advertisers lose the passive 'push' messaging, but in online get a more valuable engaged audience.

heightened expectations
even more of a factor than a populace consuming on their own terms is the content of the ads themselves. the superbowl used to be the meeting place where the best, funniest, most creative, wacky, random, highly entertaining and cool ads came to show off. that is a bygone time. television, even the superbowl, has been relegated to second fiddle in an internet video era where it is not only the channel of choice, but the new bastion of all that is great in video, ads or otherwise.

with access to the long tail of video content, consumer appetite has changed in what is truly breakthrough and salient with them. they still want the polish of it all, but have a very altered notion of what makes a great 30 second ad. they have been trained to want edgier, more interesting, more entertaining, more emotive, less branded and sell-y type ads. they have gravitated toward the subversive, where the brand is minimized, but the impact is amplified.

when we can take to the web and watch great work from every corner of the world, a tv spot faces greater obstacles to relevance and effect on the consumer. a place where broadcast standards don't apply and the risk/reward ratio is not as severe.

social currency
we still think of superbowl ads as something to be placed on a mantle and revered. truth is, they don't carry the same social currency as before. the ads within are brand messages, directed at viewers en masse, that through media investment, word of mouth can be engineered. the tectonic plates of consumer discussion have shifted though with the emergence of efficient and open distribution methods, and the democratization of content production. consumers are now in control of engineering what breaks through the din of all the brand messages in the media world.

only difference has been that somehow we equated a spot in the superbowl to mean it's going to be a great ad. that's lazy marketing because not all superbowl ads are great and not all superbowl viewers are your intended audience. these spots got attention because they were in the superbowl, not necessarily by virtue of their greatness. with the rise of alternative ways of viewing and a wider assortment of stuff to consume, truly great creative shines and becomes culturally significant because it's not being pushed on us, but because it talk worthy.

there is also how we share these ads and bring them into our own social fold. before we could only talk about them around a water cooler, having seen it just the one time. with the internet, we can go back to it, we can physically share it, we can comment on it, we can elevate it or diminish it in many places. it takes on a life of its own because it lives on, not dying after its lone airing.

the cost equation
every second of advertising in the superbowl costs $100,000. add to that the cost of making the ad, which often comes at a premium because of the special occasion and creative types pulling out the big guns. that's a lot to pay for something that has every chance to be a big success as it does to be a colossal failure. it also runs the risk of just being mediocre and lost in the shuffle. and quite often, that spot airs just the once, making it a pricey one-off.

compare that to online distribution methods. the likelihood of breaking out and having a real impact are just as strong and for 100% less the cost of a superbowl ad. i won't pretend that you can get it for $0, but technically you could. so for significantly less in cost you can put it in the consumer's hand, who always had the final say in just how far an ad proliferated the cultural consciousness.

the timing of it all
as i elaborated already on the distribution side of things, we are at a point where we don't need the big event anymore to debut a new spot. things move faster now and we can constantly innovate our approaches and iterate our creative faster. we can access our consumers quicker and take the great thing we built and release it to the world for accelerated return on our efforts. we can be more nimble in responding to successes and failures. the internet is as big a seeding ground for our efforts on an ongoing basis than any one day or game. the potential for groundswell and expansion on a continual basis is enormous.

of course this won't be the last year of a big commotion being made of the superbowl ads. but i think it will slowly erode and in the not too distant future almost cease to be a talking point anymore. it will be broadcast, it will have ads, but won't have the same fuss about it.

begrudging biz books

i've been on a bit of a business book binge (also thought leadership books, but that would ruin the alliteration) for the last little bit and one thing has become abundantly clear - they all drown themselves in case studies. so much so, i was able to power through the books at speed because i was just glossing over the painful articulation of one microcosm of an example.

i get why a case study can be good, i do. it's a real world example of one's premise or idea in action. it's there to lend credibility to what is being put forth. this is more about fewer case studies than getting rid of them altogether. then again, i wouldn't be mourning their altogether elimination.

you see, someone else's success story (or failure for that matter) is their own. each case study is comprised of a completely unique set of circumstances and personalities. there is only so much of that which lends itself to any of the reader's situation. it's great to hear about people applying the ideas postulated but copying it does not a success make. there's nothing to say that a similar application of the idea has bearing on any other situation. so where exactly is the value?

some will point to credibility. that the idea has needs to prove itself, right or wrong, to have validity. i don't totally buy that. the reason being because the idea gains its credibility by way of the author.

the book exists because of a singular, powerful, unique thought from a leader in the field who has a vision to share. they are being published because they are respected, their opinion carries weight and their notion is truly original, innovative or inspiring. shouldn't that be enough? are they so insecure with their premise that they need to find examples up the wazoo to verify it is correct or exists at all? is it publisher imposed? does the audience really clamor for them that much? is that their own insecurity in adopting an idea that they can't tread where others haven't forged a path already?

i say, if the idea is powerful, then put it out there and the world will decide. it seems ingenuine that someone will do something not because they believe what they are reading, but because someone else has done it. if it's right, or makes sense, or is logical then it should be pursued. right isn't someone else's version of right. making sense isn't how someone else made sense of the idea and brought it to life. and well, not everyone follows the same logic.

all said, the books are theories. they convey an abstract idea that isn't proved in any one way. the practical side of the equation is too unique for each acting upon it. as a marketer of beer, my reading a case study about a shoe marketer has little application to me. i'm glad they did well, but how they did it was of no value to me because i live in a different universe. (i'm not sure if that last part was a case study to prove my point thus making me a hypocrite. it's too meta to think about)

so authors, focus on writing your ideas and sharing them, not on showing they can be right. unless you get paid by the word, then i vote for putting the idea out there and saving some time (and precious trees) for people to actually take that idea and run with it.

when to not say yes to the vet

this weekend has been a tough one for us. one of our rabbits fell seriously ill with fluid in his chest and an abscess in his stomach. he's doing much better now (not quite out of the woods though) after some great care by 3 different vets. but it got me thinking about the dollars and cents of veterinary care.

we don't have pet insurance, virtually no one does. i read a stat that only 0.4% of all cats and dogs in the u.s. are insured by their owners. that is amazingly low. i thought it was maybe between 5% and 10%. compare that to human insurance in the u.s. which is around 82% (it's the only fair comparison given our universl health care in canada - the point being that if we didn't have socialized healthcare here, the percentages would likely be similar). so how much do we really love our pet companions? what is the price tag we have on them? apparently it's around $576 before euthanization becomes a much more viable option to further treatment according to caa.

pet insurance aside, what of company benefits. do any of them include pets? i seriously doubt it (mine doesn't), even though they are a part of the family and the rest of them get coverage. my pets wellbeing weighs on me as my people family would and that affects my work life and my financial life that the rest of my benefits are there to assuage in the event of health issues. 

why can't they be included? there's a lot of crap in benefit packages we don't ever use. $500 in massage that i'll never use i'd rather have available to put toward vet bills. i won't go through it line by line, but there's lot sof things i don't need or won't use that would easily make up for what i'd spend or use in pet insurance. not to take this post of track, but i'd love to see an openness and flexibility in benfit packages that a person could tailor to themselves and their situation, especially as it pertains to pets.

more than anything, i struggle with the dynamic people and their pets, especially when it comes down to medical care and the associated costs. on one side, i can see how there's a point where people can decide that the equaion doesn't balance and it doesn't make sense. it's a very real possibility some times. or that they simply don't have the money to give their pet that care. on the flip side, pets are just as much a part of people's lives and there is deep love people have for them. we wouldn't question it were a person on the operating table, so why do we for a pet?

i'll openly grant that it's easier to let a pet go than it is to do the same for a person. people are of a peer level and a love bond based on more levels than an animal is capable of. but that doesn't make them disposable. i hope not. that's a little shameful, though, isn't it? to think that we love animals less or in another way that somehow isn't equal. why are animals more replaceable than humans?

it's morality vs. economic. in the state of our world, we know that those two have a lot of difficulty co-existing in a positively genuine way. it's not easy.

did we consider euthanization? no, we didn't. he was still treatable and as long as that's the case, with a good outlook post-treatment, then i'm all for it. it's just money, right? so i have a little debt. so i work part time for 2-3 months to pay it off. it's worth it for me. he brings a lot of joy in my life and $3,000 is worth it for him to still be around for the rest of his life to live, be a happy rabbit and me to have his companionship.

i'm not  saying i'm a saint here. sure, i looked at the cost and had my brief doubts on whether it was worth it. i felt ashamed for doing so, but it happened. that's the dilemma with all this - why did i question it? i wasn't ready to say goodbye. there will be a time when i am more ready and feel that it is his time. when he won't be able to live a quality life, when he doesn't have a good chance of making it through, when he's lived for a long time, and when i can put my own selfishness of wanting him around aside for his own well being and stem any suffering. 

how easily we forgot about our own selfishness in this whole mater. and it's on both sides. selfishness for our money and the impact a drain will have on our lives. then selfishness of wanting to keep them around for ourselves. how do we resolve this?

i know i'm not being as clear as i'd like. it's hard to express such esoteric quandires where emotion is so heavily involved. i am having a hard time reconciling this all myself.