Want to Engage? Be a Dabbler.

Whether you're writing an ad or a novel, a poem or a script, there's one thing you've got to do -- engage your audience. Okay, that much is obvious. How to do it? There are thousands of ways, but I want to mention one key method that often gets overlooked.

Be interesting.

Generally, this means you have to introduce something the audience doesn't know about. That means you yourself have to be interesting. You have to be well-read, educated, have diverse interests. Being a writer is one of the few professions where it pays to dabble. Be a dabbler. Take up oil painting. Travel to out-of-the-way, unlikely spots. Take an interest in steampunk. Or twelfth-century Italy. Or scour the Internet for obscure pop references like Crispin Glover's bizarre appearance on Letterman. (See, I bet if you didn't know about that, you're officially interested. Try to deny it.) Or read up on rare psychological disorders, like Fregoli delusion, where a person believes that different people he or she meets is actually the same person in disguise or with the ability to change his or her appearance.

The world is filled with interesting bits, you just have to come out of the cave every once in awhile.

Doodle, The Tool

Today, I rant. Doodling over the years has received a bad rap. But doodling is a powerful tool. Not just in the sense of illustrating a problem on a whiteboard. For more on this, read The Back of the Napkin. A fantastic read.


Doodling can help you focus. It's like winding the clock of your brain. There's a kinetic energy generated when you doodle that's directly connected to comprehension and even analysis. It's difficult to explain, but I know it works. Trust me. Or trust her:


http://www.ted.com/talks/sunni_brown.html?utm_source=-09-27


So the next time you're sitting across from me in a meeting, and I'm doodling, don't give me a dirty look because you think I'm not paying attention. Get jealous because I'm retaining and processing far more of the meeting than you are.

If a TV Commercial Falls in the Forest...

5 Ways to Delight Consumers

To generalize grossly, I think what people respond to in advertising is a sense of delight. So, here are my five methods for creating delight through advertising. This is all you really need to know about advertising.

1. Make 'em laugh.
2. Make the user feel smart by giving them the opportunity to discover something on their own. This could be a subtle joke you're making, a universal truth or even a hidden easter egg in the image. The best way to accomplish this sort of thing is to hold back -- you know, the opposite of what you're usually asked to do.
3. Show a positive, unexpected community experience. This is a great way to give chills, if done honestly and with meaning.
4. Create something new and visually stunning. (Known by most graphic designers as "wicked," "cool" or "awesome.")
5. Wow them with surprising facts.

Okay, this isn't really everything you need to know about advertising, or even about how to delight consumers. But it's a good start.

Communities or What I'm Waiting For Already

I think we can all agree that the Internet is a mind-blowing phenomenon that has changed the way we connect to others in the world and how we access and process information. But when I ask myself, "Where to next?" I'm left dwelling on that highly overused phrase "online communities."

Facebook is a powerful community tool that culturally speaking is used to connect with people we've met in real life. I caveat that not everyone uses it this way, but it's by far the trend. Twitter, far from the full-service community tool of Facebook, is used primarily to connect with others that share our interests, often total strangers to us offline.

I think the first step in the next phase is to take these like-minded groups that exist in places like Twitter and community forums and put them on a platform more like Facebook. Better filtering tools are needed as well. The human mind can only effectively process so much information with any level of value. Not only do we need to filter out content not relevant to our current interest state, but also the inherent value of that content. If I see one more Facebook status that says "Monday...," well, I may do more than hide that person's statuses.

But seriously, I'm ready to see more focused tools for interest-centered communities.

The Trend of Color

Today I was working on a rough sketch of an online timeline for a client, and I came across a graphic representation of all the colors in Crayola's lineup over the years (created by Alison Haigh, found on blog One Floor Up).

This is a beautiful thing, right? So elegant in it's lack of detail (like color names and dates), it forces the imagination to go exploring. I would be curious to see a version where like colors are beside each other more consistently, which would allow us to pontificate more greatly on why certain colors my have been introduced or discontinued. All in all, it's a fascinating journey into the trend of color.

Throwing Pasta

So, I've been working on a new design for my portfolio site. Okay, I've been working with an incredibly talented designer on a new design for my portfolio site. What a great creative experience! Why? Because I'm the client. It's been somewhat exhilirating.

After meeting with the designer for a bit, I decided that I wanted to pursue a design look to which I've always been attracted: Soviet-era propaganda posters. In fact, this was an idea I'd tried to design in the past, but just didn't have the design chops to pull it off.

The designer I'm working with on this project is one of those individuals who really responds well to collaboration; he feeds on it. I love that kind of collaboration. What self-respecting creative wouldn't? As long as a mutual respect exists, it's just a very productive process.

Why am I telling you all this obvious tale? To point out that the opposite process can produce very bland work. The "throwing it over the fence" mentality. It's easy to get into our ruts, as producers of content, and to avoid creative collaboration. And I'm saying - don't do it! Get out of your chair, sit with your creative partners and just throw the pasta on the wall.