Sam Karp

what the world eats

                                                                                      

I received an email today with these pictures. It's part of a book called Hungry Planet by Peter Menzel that presents a photographic study of families from around the world, revealing what people eat during the course of one week.

Chad: The Aboubakar family of Breidjing Camp
Food expenditure for one week: 685 CFA Francs or $1.23 

Bhutan: The Namgay family of Shingkhey Village
Food expenditure for one week: 224.93 ngultrum or $5.03 

Ecuador: The Ayme family of Tingo
Food expenditure for one week: $31.55 

Egypt: The Ahmed family of Cairo
Food expenditure for one week: 387.85 Egyptian Pounds or $68.53 

Poland: The Sobczynscy family of Konstancin-Jeziorna
Food expenditure for one week: 582.48 Zlotys or $151.27

Mexico: The Casales family of Cuernavaca
Food expenditure for one week: 1,862.78 Mexican Pesos or $189.09 

Italy : The Manzo family of Sicily
Food expenditure for one week: 214.36 Euros or $260.1 

Japan : The Ukita family of Kodaira City
Food expenditure for one week: 37,699 Yen or $317.25 

Germany: The Melander family of Bargteheide
Food expenditure for one week: 375.39 Euros or $500.07 

United States : The Revis family of North Carolina
Food expenditure for one week: $341.98

truth is a pathless land

"So, what do you know? You know a lot. You have gathered all this knowledge from various sources and filled it up. Most of it is not necessary. You know a lot and you want to know more and more and more -- to use it. Of course. There's no such thing as knowledge for the sake of knowledge. It gives you power. Knowledge is power. "I know; you don't know." That gives you power. You may not even be conscious that your knowing more than the other gives you power. In that sense, knowledge is power. To acquire more and more knowledge, more than the knowledge that is essential for the survival of the living organism, is to acquire more and more power over others.

The technical knowledge that you need to make a living is understandable. That's all. I have to learn a technique. The society is not going to feed me unless I give something in return. You have to give them what they want, not what you have to give. What do have you to give? You have nothing to give anyway.

Otherwise, what value has this knowledge for you? To know more about something which you really do not know.

We are always talking about thought and thinking. What is thought? Have you ever looked at thought, let along controlling thought; let alone manipulating thought; let alone using that thought for achieving something material or otherwise? You cannot look at your thought, because you cannot separate yourself from thought and look at it. There is no thought apart from the knowledge you have about those thoughts -- the definitions you have. So if somebody asks you the question, "what is thought?" any answer you have is the answer that is put in there -- the answers that others have already given.

You have, through combinations and permutations of ideation and mentation about thoughts, created your own thoughts which you call your own. Just as when you mix different colors, you can create thousands of pastel colors, but basically all of them can be reduced to only seven colors that you find in nature. What you think is yours is the combination and permutation of all those thoughts, just the way you have created hundreds and hundreds of pastel colors. You have created your own ideas. That is what you call thinking. When you want to look at thought, what there is is only whatever you know about thought. Otherwise you can't look at thought. There is no thought other than what there is in what you know about thought. That's all that I am saying. So when that is understood the meaninglessness of the whole business of wanting to look at thought comes to an end. What there is is only what you know, the definitions given by others. And out of those definitions, if you are very intelligent and clever enough, you create your own definitions. That's all.

When you look at an object the knowledge you have about that object comes into your head. There is an illusion that thought is something different from objects, but it is you who creates the object. The object may be there, but the knowledge you have about that object is all that you know. Apart from that knowledge and independent of that knowledge, free from that knowledge, you have no way of knowing anything about it. You have no way of directly experiencing anything. The word "directly" does not mean that there is any other way of experiencing things other than the way you are experiencing things now. The knowledge you have about it is all that is there and that is what you are experiencing. Really, you do not know what it is.

In exactly the same way, when you want to know something about thought, or experience thought, it is the same process that is in operation there. There is no inside or outside. What there is is only the operation, the flow of the knowledge. So you cannot actually separate yourself from thought and look at it.

So when such a question is thrown at you, what should happen is [the realization] that none of the answers have any meaning, because all that is acquired and taught. So that movement stops. There is no need for you to answer the question. There is no need for you to know anything about it. All that you know comes to a halt. It has no momentum any more. It slows down, and then it dawns upon you that it is meaninglessness to try to answer that question, because it has no answer at all. The answers that others have given are there. So you have nothing to say on that thing called thought, because all you can say is what you have gathered from other sources. You have no answer of your own."-- U. G.

subliminal advertising

I came across this Derren Brown video clip on You Tube called Subliminal Advertising.

His voiceover says:

…Those who work in advertising are masters of persuasion. They subtly weave their images and slogans into our daily lives knowing that we will register so much unconsciously. Then we walk into a supermarket and feel a sense of familiarity with a product we think we never heard of. Millions of pounds a year are spent on it. It’s brilliantly calculated and we all fall for it.

If only it were that easy to influence people. One problem is that there is just way too much advertising competing for people’s attention. It’s hard for a brand to stand out in the mind of a potential customer when she sees an estimated one million marketing messages a year.

However, I suspect people who saw this video clip view ad agencies much like this: guys who wear black tee shirts; have shaved heads who sit in a secret room where they devise a master plan to plant subliminal messages in unsuspecting minds, in much the same way Derren Brown did to them.

But it’s hard enough to get it right for the conscious mind, why target the unconscious mind?

Unless I missed something in my advertising schooling, I don’t recall subliminal marketing 101 or how to write for the unconscious mind. (maybe this could be a new class ;)

Is there really time to create well-orchestrated subliminal advertising campaigns?

Here’s the reality of advertising: politics, egos, budgets and the fickle client. This blog called “Why Advertising Sucks” illustrates this point perfectly. Here are two snippets from recent rants:

You will not be told of a new business presentation until at most 48 hours until the date of presentation. Chances are this notification will be on a Friday, so that you may spend the weekend “brainstorming.”

It’s as if we creative monkeys can only execute brilliance within the target specific parameters offered by the client. What this really seems to mean though is that quite often we’ve seen what the competition is doing and the people the competition is speaking to and think they’re on the right path so why not make a spin-off of what they’re doing…
Seriously, is it that hard to come up with a rationale that isn’t irrational and isn’t a carbon copy of the instructions given to the other companies’ creative team?

The reality is not as sexy or as sinister as Derren made it out be. What do you think?

avoiding the stinky problem

Photo Credit: OpenCage

I saw a story on the TV news last night about city officials who decided to use perfume to mask the odor of the local sewage plant. According to the print version of the story, it costs about $120 a day to spray one of three scents: blackberry, vanilla or creamsicle.

And it made me think about this quote from a book I recently read.

“Most of us try to seek an answer to the problem; we are concerned with the solution, and not with the problem. We want a conclusion, we are looking for a way out of the problem; we want to avoid the problem through an answer, through a solution. We do not observe the problem itself but grope for a satisfactory answer. Our whole conscious concern is with the finding of a solution, a satisfying conclusion.

Often we do find an answer that gratifies us, and then we think we have solved the problem. What we have actually done is to cover over the problem with a conclusion, with a satisfactory answer; but under the weight of the conclusion, which had temporarily smothered it, the problem is still there. The search for an answer is an evasion of the problem.”

Page 136, Commentaries on Living, J. Krishnamurti

portland coffee

Great to see some familiar faces (Stephen, Russell) this morning at Stumptown in Portland. I enjoyed meeting Matt, Barbara, Christian, Noel and a few others whose names I didn't get. If you have a blog or a name let me know.

blind thinking

… men of good will should not have formulas; for formulas lead, inevitably, only to “blind thinking.” 

…for our system of upbringing is based on what to think, not how to think.

Consequently you respond to the challenge, which is always new, according to an old pattern; and therefore your response has no corresponding validity, newness, freshness.

From the foreword by Aldous Huxley in the book The First and Last Freedom by J. Krishnamurti

fin

Flicks & Picks
Originally uploaded by samkarp.

I paid my final respects to Flicks and Picks yesterday. Beloved by the community, for many years this video store was the only place in town to find an obscure documentary or foreign film.

Then came Netflix.

After 23 years, one of the last remaining video rental stores in Eugene closes.

"The convenience of being able to stay at home in your living room and dial up a movie or get one in the mail, it's just a changing industry and we thought this was a good time to bow out," says co-owner Dave Mendonca. (source: TV station, KVAL 13 Eugene).

Sometimes you need to realize when your way of doing business no longer makes sense and quit.

It’s interesting though how many people SAID they loved this locally owned video shop, however chose to rent videos elsewhere. As we all know, what people say they want or do is often different from their behavior.

how to get noticed

• Attach 105 balloons to your lawn chair.
• Fire 1,000 of your worst customers.
• Stock your store with Buzz cola and Krusty-Os cereal.

Benjamin Palmer talks at Cannes

I found this interview with Benjamin Palmer, Co-founder and president of The Barbarian Group hidden away in episode 3 of Arnold’s behind-the-scenes Cannes video, something they call Cannes’t. Here’s the essence of what Benjamin had to say or you can watch the video here.

Do you like advertising or hate or despise it?

I don’t like bad advertising. I don’t think anyone likes bad advertising. You use to be able to sell a lot of products and be a successful agency and be a successful brand without actually doing anything interesting.

You could buy your way in?

Yeah. The media was fixed and controlled. You could do something terrible with a logo and inundate people and you would succeed.

I love brands. It’s what gives our capitalistic world some personality. I don’t particularly care for advertising when it’s not any good.

Now, the competition is not another ad, it’s everything. You’re five minute experience has to be better than anything else someone could be doing with their life.

I’m interested in taking what you would normally use for a marketing budget and turning it into something that functionally improves the product. The worst part about advertising is when there is a shitty product and you have to sell it. When probably they should just change it so that it’s good. The product or experience should draw people in on its own merits.

back to the future

I saw this on the Fallon Planning Blog today. It goes rather well with my previous post about the future.

what's an idea worth

We are good at coming up with ideas and solving problems. That's what makes us different from any other species on the planet. Sure, our solution to a problem often creates new and more complex problems. But that's how jobs are created. Most of the interesting jobs today are about finding solutions to other people's problems. So, the question becomes: What's the processing power of your brain worth? What's an idea worth?

• Amazon's Mechanical Turk aims to harness the problem solving power of the human brain. Their offer: "Complete simple tasks that people do better than computers. Choose from thousands of tasks, control when you work, and decide how much you earn."
• At openad.net you can buy and sell advertising ideas. With a distributed network of talented, creative problem solvers will there still be a need for brick-and-mortar traditional ad agencies that are owned by holding companies?
• Here are some interesting ideas and solutions to problems (some of which, I didn't know I have) in the form of Web2.0 at "The complete Web2.0 directory."

the future

Definitions of the future (from the preface of the book Did Someone Say Participate?)

• The future will be overgrown and decayed. – Simryn Gill
• The future is what we construct from what we remember of the past—the present is the time of instantaneous revelation. – Lawrence Weiner
• The future will be widely reproduced and distributed. – Cory Doctorow
• The future will be whatever we make it. – Jacque Fresco
• The future is waiting—the future will be self-organized. – Raqs Media Collective
• The future always flies under the radar. –Martha Rosler
• The future is overrated. –Cerith Wyn Evens

What’s your definition?

the power of numbers

I'm sure there are a few lessons we can learn from this video. It's everything a "viral" video should be. Most importantly, it makes me say, "Wow, you should see this!" It seems a few people feel the same way because it's been viewed 3,366,641 times and it's received 5,590 comments.

What I want to know is what did the buffalo say to organize the herd to come back and try to rescue the calf. How did he spread the word so fast?

The other important lesson here is that of the power of numbers. One buffalo can't overtake a pride of lions. But a well organized herd can. This is the type of thinking that scares governments and large companies.

talking with goodby

 
Zach Slow Canfield (left) and Derek Robson of Goodby, Silverstein & Partners met for a Q&A session last Friday after Derek talked about the agency's vision. On the previous day, Zach talked to students about what he looks for in a creative intern. Zach said 64 out of the 97 creatives at the agency are working on interactive. So, an intern's book should show their interactive skills. Of course, he's also looking for an understanding of typography, use of photography and raw talent.

Zach showed an example of a project he worked on. It took him about three days and $100 to create. He made a site where he attempted to ask out UK emcee Lady Sovereign. He wanted to raise $10,000 for his date. One month and 1,300,000 hits later, he met his goal (with only a couple of hours to spare before her show). Zach would love to see something like this in a creative's book. See his site here.

Two things came up during my conversation with Derek that I've been meaning to share here too. First, is dutchtub (a brand I like). It's a portable wood fired hot tub. The tub is made from a light weight polyester and uses a coiled stainless steel heating system. Here's a brand promise: you can have a nice warm soak anywhere there's wood and water.

Second, is The Brand Gap by Marty Neumeier. It's everything I've been thinking and learning about for the past year—all condensed into a small book. "Not since McLuhan's The Medium is the Message has a book compressed so many ideas into so few pages."  Download the pdf presentation of the book here. I'm sure you'll love it too.

Thanks, Zach, Jill and Derek. Great to meet you all!

72 & sunny in eugene

John Boiler and Glenn Cole, co-founders and co-creative directors of 72andSunny, presented their work at Ad Night last week at the UO campus. They did a great job of telling the story about how they solved their clients’ business problem by developing sound communication strategy. Two examples are Zune and DC shoes (These link to YouTube, go to the 72andSunny site to see all of their work).

The next day, John (left, white shirt, hand on chin) and Glenn (right, green shirt, hand on chin) met with students and reviewed their work.

John said, “Know what you’re doing and why you’re doing it. Then, get really good at it.”

(Glenn was talking about non-profits and causes here)

Glenn said, “You’re job is to help people make more money. You’re job is to be great at interviewing the client.” You need to make sure you're solving the right problem for them.

Some good questions: What keeps you up at night? How do you make money? What do you do with that money? Are people feeling loyal to your cause? What is it about your cause that is different?

Shocking people or using sensational language is one mistake people make when trying to generate awareness for a cause, they said. The message needs to be optimistic. It needs to connect with people in a positive way and it needs to make them feel good about supporting the cause.

“We want to see how you think. If you can make us think about it (a product or a cause) or care about it, then you’re job is done.”

John and Glenn, thanks again for taking the time to visit. Great job guys!

develop your brain

"The true nature of mankind is that of a super-social ape. We are programmed to be together; sociability is our species' key evolutionary strategy; we feel happier with others; our brains develop through interaction with others and when our brains don't develop normally this often robs us of key human skills. When they develop properly we have the most amazing capabilities to live together and create things together." from  Mark Earls' book Herd.

Join me for conversation, coffee and brain development. The next coffee morning will be Friday, May 25, 10 a.m., Midtown Marketplace 1591 Willamette St. (in the back section near the fireplace). See you there.

the blog advantage

Mark Twain said, "The man who does not read good books has no advantage over the man who can't read them." I think the same is true of blogs.

beautiful data

Data doesn't have to be boring. Above is a collection of images from Visual Complexity with links to 460 projects. Also, Mashable has a nice review of 16 data visualization tools (some of which I hadn't see before). You may have seen Hans Roslings speech at the TED conference where he enthusiastically demonstrated Gapminder’s Trendalyzer software. Google recently bought Trendalyzer and has a live test site here (it's fun to play with). Of course Swivel is cool too.

survey says...

Heather LeFevre released the results of her 2007 planner survey. Download the pdf here.

• Topics included salary, experience, satisfaction, and aspects of supervisors
• 466 completed surveys (compared to 192 last year) from March 16 - April 8
• 58% Men/42% Women
• 38% from outside USA

perception vs. reality

How many black dots do you see? Ask one hundred people and what do you think the average number would be? Would that research make the answer more accurate?

Well, this Scintillating grid is an illusion; there are no black dots. The difference between perception and reality can be drastic sometimes.

Sure, I’m using this as an analogy for consumer research, but how often do you hear a firm ask straightforward questions and expect straightforward answers? Problems often result when they try to make important business decisions based on the research without taking into account the perceptions of the consumer.

Henry Ford said, “If I’d asked my customers what they wanted, they’d have said a faster horse.”  The key, I suppose, is to learn how to interpret what the consumer is saying.

what would you do?

For some reason I can’t stop thinking about this article I saw in the newspaper three days ago. Here are the key points:

• EWEB is planning a "brand development" campaign to learn whether customers' perceptions of EWEB matches employees' perceptions and the utility's communications to the public, spokesman Marty Douglass said.
• “The utility plans to spend about $75,000 on initial survey and research work, and then will consider spending another $75,000 on brand development. The work is being done in conjunction with Cappelli Miles [spring], a Eugene-based marketing and communications firm.”
• A new "brand" could conceivably include a new slogan or logo.
• "We don't feel we can make that decision right now in the absence of research."

Here are my concerns: What business problem will the utility solve by conducting this research? Is there truly a logo or tagline problem that needs solving?

Let’s remember that a brand is a living concept found in people’s minds. The visual identity of a firm or its products is only but a small part of a brand. The greater the gap between what a firm says versus what is does, the less authentic it will appear. When the two are aligned a firm will be perceived as authentic.  I have a feeling that this is what the utility is after: a sense of authenticity and connection with its customers.

I believe what a firm does, however, is more important that what it says it does. In writing the rule of thumb says, show don’t tell. It’s true with brands too.  A brand encompasses everything a customer comes in contact with (every touch point, each employee, the architecture of the office, how customers are treated, ect.)

I’m curious, how would you spend $75,000 to improve the utility’s brand?

the friendship model

Richard Ward drew this on the chalkboard yesterday while talking about the evolution of the advertising communication model. How appropriate.

Today, Ward, Steve O'Leary, Tamera Geddes and Sheila Vineyard talked to students about breaking into the ad industry. I noticed that the advice they gave to land that first job — such as, start a conversation, don’t be annoying, make friends, don’t lie, be gracious — are the same things a brand should do to have a long-term relationship with a customer. It’s also the same thing an agency should do to win and keep a client. My observation is that the strategy to sell yourself to an agency is really no different than the concept Ward describes as friendship.

Ward says: Prove to me that you’re engaged. Have a point of view. For a pitch or an interview: write down the 50 hardest questions, then come up with the answers. Show evidence of your success. Sell what you did. What is your future value to the agency, your book helps show that. Show me things that you love and admire, tell me why. Then, tell me how that could apply to a brand.

Joe Leary recorded some of the ideas shared today too.

visualizing the blogosphere

 
This is an interesting look at the blogosphere by Matthew Hurst. The white dots represent individual blogs, sized according to number of links. See original post here.

1. DailyKos (the big white dot with nearly half a millions hits a day).
2. Boingboing.
3. LiveJournal bloggers.
4. Political discourse (the blue cluster).
5. Porn bloggers.
6. Sports enthusiasts.

blogging & ideas

I had five minutes to talk about blogging and ideas today at the UO School of Journalism and Communication. Not a lot of time for such a broad topic. My talk was one of eight for a small group of students, professors and special guest, Richard Ward.

It was a pleasure to meet Richard Ward, President and CEO of WestWayne. Ward founded the executive in residence program, which brought Russell Davies to the school earlier this year.

Here’s what I had to say:

The single most important thing you can do while is school is start a blog. Fill it with content you’re curious and passionate about. Then write it in a way that’s engaging for people to read.

Even if you’re not in school, let’s say you’re a professor or CEO, starting a blog is the single most important thing you can do this month, that is, if you don't already have one.

When Russell Davies visited in October something clicked for me. He said he wouldn’t hire anyone who doesn’t have a blog. Maybe that helped motivate me. Or maybe it was how he described a blog as a living resume. Whatever the reason I started my blog that day. And this is what I’ve learned.

A blog can make you better at what you do. It can help make you become a better writer. It can help distill your ideas, test them and get feedback. You can exchange ideas with people from around the world. Start conversations with people who are interested in the same things you are. You can record observations and insights you would have otherwise forgotten and can easily retrieve them with a Google search. That’s pretty cool.

I started interviewing people who I think are interesting and posting those interviews on my blog. Just think about how many fascinating people visit this campus. Imagine interviewing some of those people. I wish I started doing this sooner.

Most importantly, a blog can help build community. I think that’s what people truly seek: a sense of connection. These virtual communities are spilling into coffee shops. Groups like likemind and events like coffee mornings, inspired by Russell Davies, are sprouting up around the world. Including the one here in Eugene that I started and the one in Portland Stephen Landau started.

My newest project, coworkingeugene.com, will take this sense of community one step further.

I posted this idea on my blog last week. Russell Davies noticed it and posted it on his blog. Within a day I had 500 page views from more than 300 unique visitors from around the world.

Blogs are a great way to store, organize and share ideas. When you get your blog up and running send me your link. I would like to see what you're up to.

bird by bird

I'm reading Bird by Bird by Anne Lamott who says, "...good writing is about telling the truth." A few sentences later she says, "telling the truth in an interesting way turns out to be as easy and pleasurable as bathing a cat."