One of a number of great quotes from writer Oscar Wilde, but this one is by far my favorite. So what does this mean? Essentially Mr. Wilde is equating gaining experience to making mistakes. I feel this is a brilliant insight because its so true that all experience really is from mistakes. We don’t learn further about things we already know, we learn about things that we don’t know and that either manifests in a mistake in one of two ways.
Either its internally something you’re unsure on and take a chance to see the outcome. You may be right in the end and it could be the correct decision, but that unsureness is essentially you worrying about making the wrong choice, making a mistake and that in itself is a lesson learned. The other side of the coin is quite simply making a true mistake and when you do, its something you usually learn from quite quickly.
All in all a great quote from Oscar Wilde and a revealing fact that we need to make mistakes to learn and grow.
Another serving of Sunday’s Top Links. This week we see the story and end of the Sony Walkmen, an innovative new platform for funding creative projects, how others influence who we are, getting your money’s worth at college, and the best of web video from Vimeo.
Large funding platform for creative projects throughout the world. There unique system of all or nothing funding allows for everyone to test their ideas and projects while minimizing risk.
Vimeo put together a Showcase of the Top 9 Films on the web right now in a range of categories, including: Animation, Motion Graphics, Narrative, Music Video, and much more.
We often value the skills that we have worked hard to acquire over the skills that we have an innate talent for. Why do we do this? It seems that we have a stronger connection with the acquired skills because of the process we went through to attain them, whereas our talents are often overlooked because we feel we did not invest in them in anyway.
Now the questions is, is there such a thing as true talent? Malcolm Gladwell in his book Outliers, tells us how there is no natural talent and everything is correlated to hard work. He gives numerous examples, and in the end comes to the conclusion that it takes approximately 10,000 hours to become an expert or “talented” in anything.
I tend to agree with Gladwell that it does take hard work to reach that level of being the best at what you do, but more often than not, the areas we feel we have natural talent in, have been acquired in such a way that we do not see the hard work associated with them. In this case, I feel you would gain these talents in two different ways:
Passively through experiences in our everyday life
True joy and love for what we are doing
In one instance its just what needs to be done, whereas the other is having a passion for what you are doing. In each situation that link towards hard work isn’t formed, which makes the skill feel more like a talent opposed to an acquired skill. Either way, there is still a necessity to put in the time and effort to truly develop our “natural talents”. What do you think?
A recent article from Faris Yacob entitled “All Market Research Is Wrong” brought up some interesting ideas about the validity of practices in the field. He brought up two central points in his argument:
1. We don’t know why we do what we do
This is a way to say we don’t know what we want, we don’t know why, and often we don’t even think about it.
I’ve been very interested in this topic ever since reading Dan Ariely’sPredictably Irrational in 2008, where he discusses how human behavior makes no sense (irrational) in a variety of different contexts: ownership, expectations, choice, value, money, arousal, and more. The book is fantastic and he gives great examples through a variety of experiments and field tests that bring more validity to the ideas.
Now I’d like to assume that everyone makes decisions consciously, but even I can tell from observing other people that the decisions we sometimes make are at times nonsensical at best. There are of course exceptions, but they wouldn’t form the majority. If the general consumer doesn’t know why we do what we do, how can we tell a marketer what we want? There are external forces that influence our decisions and behaviors that market research mostly overlooks.
2. The gulf between claimed attitudes/intentions and actual behavior is vast
Another way of saying this is that how we want ourselves and others to perceive us is not who we actually are. This is a very common phenomenon nowadays, where there are various social pressures to fit in, follow the crowd, and be “normal” so to speak. You can only imagine how this sort of behavior by the consumer could severely skew market research. Once again, there are people who are true to themselves and don’t care what other people think, but those are also rare.
What it all means
Of course its hard to prove either side of the argument, and in and ideal world market research would always tell us what we need to know about the consumer, but that’s not always the case.
Market research could greatly benefit by changing there ways in a few areas that could remove these uncertain factors from the equation:
Observation vs. Asking: actually observing and watching how consumers interact with and function in a normal setting would allow us to truly understand their behavior and needs opposed to asking, which always comes with a grain of salt. The real challenge here is getting creative in the way in which we can carry out observation.
Study of Behavioral Economics: this is a fairly new field and I hope over time it will be adopted more into marketer’s strategy, because the irrationality of human behavior can truly shed light on how best to serve them. Areas related have already been studied, such as psychology, sociology, etc and this should be the newest addition to the arsenal.
I’m aware these aren’t the newest ideas out there, but they are critical to success and should be implemented into the foundations of market research not just additional tools that are used sparingly by some.
What it all comes down to is what the purpose of this market research is. If the primary goal is simply to translate this research into sales, then current methods may suffice, but if it is to truly meet consumer needs (which I think is the basis of all marketing) then there is need for innovation in the basics of market research.
Amazing street artist JR (picture of work above) is awarded a $100,000 grant from TED Prize for 2011. It’s definitely not a traditional choice for what we normally see from TED, but I think its a great decision, as his work really does portray innovation and creativity at its core. You can see more of his work here.
Yet again, Seth Godin with a brilliant post about how many of us are more intrigued by media and truly mindless TV shows, opposed to the value and information gained from books, news, and more impactful content.
Awesome new game from IBM Innov8, CityOne gives you control of a city and allows you to develop it in four key areas: energy, water, banks, and retail.
A new study from Columbia Business School has shown a relation between creativity and feeling a little gloomy. I’m a bit skeptical, but its an interesting idea nonetheless.
The following is another fantastic video from RSA Animate based on the new book from Steven Johnson – “Where Good Ideas Come From”. He brings up some great concepts such as the ‘Liquid Network’ and the ‘Slow Hunch’ with respect to how we come up with the ideas that we do. This is a great preamble to what I’m sure will be a fantastic book. Check out the video below:
This is one of my favorite quotes by Heinlein from the book Time Enough For Love. Essentially this is giving his point of view between focusing on a particular area vs. being a jack-of-all trades, so to speak.
This is one of my favorite quotes by Heinlein from the book Time Enough For Love. Essentially this is giving his point of view between focusing on a particular area vs. being a jack-of-all trades, so to speak.
I can understand the value of specialization to a point, but I think when you become too much of an expert, your ability to see the bigger picture, connect ideas, and think outside the box diminish. The perfect balance, from my perspective, is to have just enough understanding of an area to grasp the major concepts and effectively communicate with true experts in the field. Anything beyond that loses value because you slowly lose your ability to provide a unique perspective. Below you can find the full quote from Heinlein:
“A human being should be able to change a diaper, plan an invasion, butcher a hog, conn a ship, design a building, write a sonnet, balance accounts, build a wall, set a bone, comfort the dying, take orders, give orders, cooperate, act alone, solve equations, analyze a new problem, pitch manure, program a computer, cook a tasty meal, fight efficiently, die gallantly. Specialization is for Insects.” - Robert A. Heinlein.
This week in Sunday’s Top Links we see a brilliant flash creation of the universe, insight on procrastination, a way to measure your social media influence, how to organize your ideas, and a look at some creative marketing via YouTube.
GAP, what a mess they made of things. Its been quite a hectic few weeks for the clothing company. Here’s how it all began…
1. GAP Introduces New Logo
And get eaten alive by the social media mob… and I can see why. I mean its not much of a logo and I have no idea how they could have paid for that, not that the original is much better, but that was before social media’s hey day, where such strong opinions could be heard and felt so directly. Its interesting to think what this would have been like 10 years ago even, before social media provided instantaneous feedback, but we’ll never know. Overall though, I feel that its very difficult to change your brand image in this day and age, unless its just a facelift or you’re brand its just completely outdated, so you better get it right the first time.
2. We’re Open To Other Ideas?!
They actually asked the design community to come up with something better for them… for free. I don’t think that was the best way to handle the already difficult situation. A lot of the focus from the design community was the fact that they asked, but that there was no incentive given to them… not sure whose making the decisions here.
3. Back To The Original
Finally, after evaluating the hot flaming mess they just made for themselves, they moved back to the original logo. This is where it should have been all along. I wonder what kind of impact this entire debacle had, but I ultimately agree with the decision to go back to the original logo after the back lash from the new logo and their overall approach to the situation.
I wonder how this came to be at all though. Was the designer of the logo just that good of a seller that they fell under their spell? Did they not get any feedback from other designers, customers, etc before jumping into the decision? I think if anything, this is a good lesson to everyone else about the whole idea of rebranding, and essentially how not to do it.
I grew up on Sesame Street and still love it today. When I watch nowadays (not too often, I swear) I’m always amazed by how they are able to connect both to the kid and adult audiences. Disney is probably the best at this, but for a children’s TV program, Sesame Street is quite impressive.
The most recent example is the Old Spice Parody, where our old friend Grover is teaching us about the word “on”. Brilliant to say the least.
