Education is not neutral

"There is no such thing as a neutral education process. Education either functions as an instrument that is used to facilitate the integration of the younger generation into the logic of the present system and bring about conformity to it, or it becomes 'the practice of freedom,' the means by which men and women deal critically and creatively with reality and discover how to participate in the transformation of their world."

—Richard Schaull, from the foreward for Pedagogy of the Oppressed by Paulo Freire

Marketing Fail #76

Please stop "combining" your years of experience with your business partners' to make your company sound more experienced than it is. If you're claiming to have "over 85 years of combined experience" in any specialty whatsoever, you're not fooling anyone.

It's just bad math, and it makes you look like you're trying too hard.

Keeping It Real Green: PDF Now Available

Yep, I finally got a PDF version of Keeping It Real Green up and online:



> Click to Download <

It's begging to be expanded into a full-on e-book, so if there are additional issues or subjects you'd like to see covered, do let me know.

To read about the design thinking that went into the guide, or to order a hard copy version, go here and fill out the form at the bottom of the page.

Marketing Blog Formula No. 47

Describing how sports/current events/your latest bathroom visit is like your product/service/the marketplace.



Please, for the love of all that is good and holy, stop relying on tired old constructs to develop your blog content. I understand we're not all professional writers, and some folks need structured prompts to get inspired every once in a while (I know I do). But so many of these posts are grasping at straws, creating parallels where there are none. Worse still, such constructs don't generally lead to good writing. Because even when you've drawn a nice straight comparison between Michael Jackson's struggle for sanity and the solo entrepreneur's struggle for work-life balance, you're still left with the giant unanswered question of so what?

How do such metaphors (similes?) help your readers understand the significance of your point? Too often, they don't. What they do offer is an easy way for bloggers to keep talking about themselves, rather than anything that really matters.

So here's a quick challenge: the next time you're inclined to write your post around a comparison between some current pop culture phenomenon and your own business, take an extra minute to keep writing. Write about why anyone should care in the first place, and write about what it really means for your readers. Then go back, re-read it, edit the hell out of it, and then post it.

Roughstock Posters to be Published in "Designing for the Greater Good"

Just got the good news that two political posters I designed will be published in Peleg Top and Jonathan Cleveland's upcoming Designing for the Greater Good: The Best of Cause-Related Marketing and Nonprofit Design. I'm pretty thrilled to be included in a collection that celebrates the power graphic designers have to impact the world around us, and I'm particularly honored to be featured next to some incredible designers.





Designing for the Greater Good is scheduled to be published by Crescent Hill Books in January of 2010.

The Concept: Advice to Be Taken As Directed

A concept is generally considered to be the most important element of any commercial design project; designers love to throw the word around, but many are hard-pressed to actually define it. Copywriters rely on concepts as much as designers (and are often the ones responsible for developing them at the outset of a project), but are often just as much at a loss for words when asked for a definition (sad state of affairs, no?). And clients generally just look at us all blankly when we bring it up. With all this vaguery and confusion it's no wonder that solid concepts are about as rare as an honest politician these days.

A definition that actually means something

Essentially, a concept is the intellectual construct that binds the visual and verbal elements within any given design piece. Another attempt at definition, no less esoteric: a concept is the organized structuring of relevant themes that guides the visual and verbal components in a physical piece. Does that help?

"If you can't explain
it simply, you don't understand it well enough."

—Albert Einstein

If the intellectual construct is shaky - that is, if the pieces of the puzzle don't fit logically together in some way, the concept is weak and the viewer is left either confused, or simply uninterested. It's easy to create those kinds of concepts, and writers and designers churn them out every day (often encouraged by marketers, receptionists, and the boss' spouse).

But when a concept logically links the various intellectual and physical components of a design together, and manages to add a cognitive twist that stimulates the brain in some way (forcing the old a-ha, or double-take), we can reach conceptual nirvana. Or at least, we're likely to give the design more of our attention.

An example, please

Of course, this is all a lot of theoretical hooey, and like a lot of other theoretical intangibles, concepts are often subject to the "I'll know it when I see it" rule of understanding. So let's try it: I stumbled across a brilliantly concise design concept while perusing the AIGA Design Archives this weekend. This is a promotional mailer (a postcard, ostensibly, or brochure), designed in 1962, for a photography company. Ready? It's really quite subtle (or, as I like to call it, elegant):



The concept: the photography company as remedy for what ails you. This is largely a copy concept, in that the kicker - the element that provides the a-ha moment - is the tagline "To be taken as directed." The visual cues - the medicine bottle and prescription label - support this copy, but it's the copy that tells us everything we need to know about the company via the metaphor of prescriptive medicine.

This particular concept relies on a double meaning: the tagline uses a familiar phrase in medicine, to be taken as directed, and places it within a photography context, thereby adding another layer of meaning: the company's work is custom-made to order, giving the client exactly what it wants. If you've ever tried to purchase custom photography, the ability to handle art direction is fundamental; this ad speaks perfectly to its audience, using a concept that delivers the point clearly, and amusingly.

How clients can help feed concepts

Designers and copywriters don't just magically pull a solid concept out of thin air (well, the good ones can in a real pinch and for a grossly inflated sum of money). In order to produce solid concepts, creatives need information on which to build their conceptual sandcastles. This means spending time with clients before any creative work actually starts. Any number of things can trigger a good concept:

• Client personality or brand persona
• Client goals, vision, and values
  
• Audience demographics, needs, aspirations, or values
• The nature, production, and delivery of product or service offerings
• Cultural contexts and current events
• Psychedelic drugs (okay, probably not)

Designers and writers new to the trade often make the mistake of accepting what the client tells them in the first conversation, and then hitting the sketchbook. But a good creative has to ask a lot of questions first - they need to populate their mental page with lots of dots. Only when they have enough information can they create a conceptual form that makes sense; connecting the dots, as it were.

So, if you're a designer or writer: don't be afraid to ask questions. Ask strange questions. Take a ton of notes. If you're a client, of course, be willing to answer questions. Be willing to share details, tell stories, and generally spew as much information into your creative's lap as you can muster. In the end, clients and creatives share the same goal: to produce stronger work. And without a good concept, the work just won't work as hard.

Earthquake Preparedness Has Never Looked So Good

...Or been so easy to understand. The San Francisco Department of Emergency Management has done an incredible job with this infographic-based website explaining how to handle yourself in the (fairly likely) event of an earthquake. [Edited to add the real credit: I shot him because I loved him, damn him! in collaboration with asketicsf.]



The site is ultra simple, focusing on the six most common places you'll be when the Big One hits. The hilarious graphics (check out the mid-quake hair) immediately get the point across. And the copy follows suit, providing only the pertinent details, making it easier to remember, while throwing in a good dose of San Francisco attitude (when experiencing an earthquake at your local taqueria—how very relevant—you're given the choice between duck-and-cover and "grab your drink—it wasn't cheap"):



After watching the History's Channel's over-the-top-yet-nightmare-inducing look at San Francisco's earthquake history the other night, it was abundantly clear that although San Francisco's government actually has a really good earthquake preparedness plan in place, the city's residents are typically apathetic. The site does a nice job of combining design and copywriting into a short-and-sweet educational piece to break through that apathy.

(And yes, we have a run bag to keep us alive should we need it.)


[via Quipsologies]

Rethinking Paper and Ink

A great new project from Portland State University's Ooligan Press brings us Rethinking Paper and Ink, a free e-book exploring sustainable publishing. Ooligan is the university's teaching press, and as such it's using book publishing as a hands-on method for teaching students about sustainability issues, too.



The book is an enlightening read for anyone interested in the industry as a whole and/or sustainability. By taking both a broad view of sustainable book publishing (including the life cycle of a book and the various environmental impacts along the way), and more detailed look at potential best practices (including case studies), Rethinking Paper and Ink provides a thoroughly accessible framework for approaching the issues.

Given the massive impact the book publishing industry has on water and air pollution, deforestation and resource depletion, and waste processing, it's great to see students are being asked to address this stuff. It's also a really good example of how doing is often a fundamentally important part of learning (a lesson my father just recently reminded me of).

The Implications of Creative Frameworks

"For an artist, rhythm arises from the tension between regularity and irregularity, monotony and variety. Just as the predictable recurrence in pattern is a pleasure, departures from it also give pleasure, particularly when the departure has an aesthetic motive, when it adds to the 'information' we are receiving."

—Alfred Corn, The Poem's Heartbeat

It's not just pleasure we get from well-constructed rhythms (whether verbal or visual); we get meaning, too.

Sustainable Design Town Hall: Sustainable Cotton Project

As mentioned in a previous post, a group of about 20 or so designers and educators recently met at a Designers Accord town hall meeting in San Francisco to explore the subject of sustainable design and exchange ideas. This is the first in a short series of posts in which I'll continue the conversation with the other presenters there about how people can design messaging that drives measurable, ground-level change.

Lynda Grose and the Sustainable Cotton Project

California cotton used 5,849,172 pounds of chemicals in 2005, many of which are known to be significantly toxic to air, water, soil and people. Lynda Grose, fashion designer and associate professor at CCA, is working with the Sustainable Cotton Project to reduce the amount of chemicals used on California cotton crops. Her presentation offered an overview of the subject, but also explored some of the inherent challenges in communicating complex or unintuitive sustainability initiatives.

What exactly is cleaner cotton?

Cleaner cotton is the term used for the crop produced by farmers enrolled in SCP's BASIC program. BASIC (Biological Agricultural Systems in Cotton) is a farmer-to-farmer information-sharing program throughout California's Central Valley that "enables conventional farmers to adopt organic and other environmentally preferable (biologically-based Integrated Pest Management) farming techniques." It's been remarkably successful in its eight years of existence: according to an independent analysis, BASIC growers "spray up to 73% less of the most toxic insecticides and miticides used in cotton" compared to conventional growers in their area.

Grose points out, however, that cleaner cotton is not the same as organic cotton, which uses no synthetic pesticides. So it must not be as good, right? Wrong - and this is a perfect example of how many sustainability initiatives seem counterintuitive at first glance. There are a few reasons why Cleaner Cotton is such an important piece of the sustainable agricultural puzzle:

1. Organic cotton requires a great deal of hand labor. With California's higher minimum wage, this means that converting to an organic system can be cost prohibitive for conventional farmers. In fact, much of the organic cotton used in U.S. clothing, for example, is shipped from overseas, where the cost of labor is dramatically lower (resulting in more competitive pricing). So while overseas organic cotton may reduce pesticide and GMO use, it does nothing to support local (and badly needed) American farming economies.
2. The problem of toxic pesticides:
   To get about 3 bales of cotton per acre in California, conventional growers use an average of 2.1 pounds of chemicals.
   Cleaner cotton offers better yields than organic. "This is one of the significant factors in bringing growers into the 'cleaner cotton' program," Grose explains. While conventional California growers yield about 3 bales of cotton per acre, "organic cotton so far yields 50% of that. Since growers are paid per pound for their fiber, this represents significant economic risk...especially without a committed market." And how does cleaner cotton compare to conventional? "The yields are the same."
3. Proportionally, cleaner cotton cuts chemical use more than organic. In 2007, there were 240 acres of organic cotton grown in the state, reducing chemical use by about 500 pounds, according to the SCP. Compare that to the 2,000 acres of cleaner cotton that resulted in a reduction of about 2,000 pounds of chemicals, and you start to see why cleaner cotton makes so much sense.

Given the clear advantages of cleaner cotton, then, it should be a simple matter of switching growers from their conventional systems, right? Well, not exactly.

A system greater than the sum of its parts

We all know that changing just one component in a system is unlikely to change that system in the long term. We might see a temporary shift or hiccup, but eventually that system will self-correct and return to the status quo. So, to effect long-term sustainable change, each piece of the system needs to change together. As Grose mentioned, without a market of fiber manufacturers committed to purchasing cleaner cotton, there's no guarantee growers will be able to sell their cleaner yield. So the SCP is taking a three-pronged approach:

1. It helps conventional farmers convert their acreage to cleaner cotton crops (creating a supply).
2. It encourages businesses to purchase California-grown cleaner cotton in addition to overseas-grown organic cotton and instead of conventional cotton (building a distribution system).
3. It educates consumers about the advantages of cleaner cotton (creating a market demand).

Of course, changing the attitudes and behaviors of three different constituent groups is much harder than changing just one.

Reaching one goal through multiple stakeholders

If the Sustainable Cotton Project approached their campaign using a blanket message for all three groups, they might find themselves facing serious resistance. Each of these groups has a different set of obstacles to changing already comfortable (and often, profitable) behaviors. Looking at our farmers, for example, the challenges in getting them to switch from a conventional farming system are clear. Grose puts it in context:

"Cotton is grown in different regions. each with their different ecological stresses. Organic is a good tool in developing nations, where labor costs are cheaper. It's not an effective tool in developed nations where labor costs are high.

Asking a farmer to transition to organic cotton is like asking a western medicine doctor to transition to Chinese medicine and acupuncture: it's a fundamentally different system.

Cleaner cotton brings conventional farmers into biological systems, and over time they begin to trust them and apply them to other crops. Because it is scalable, it converts more farmers and more acres to biological systems than organic does. Cleaner cotton doesn't negate organic; each has their relevance in a given region."

But manufacturers and consumers are driven by different obstacles (often price, perceptions of quality, and others). So, the SCP communicates its umbrella message—"cleaner cotton is better than conventional"—to each group using different subtexts and communication channels:

• Growers
  "Farmers listen to farmers," says Grose. Farmer-to-farmer information sharing programs appeal to the close-knit community and trust issues found among growers, and on-site farm tours allow growers to see cleaner cotton in action.
• Manufacturers
  Farm tours also engage manufacturers, switching the mindset from numbers on paper to real-world results. SCP also reaches out to companies at trade shows and company headquarters, providing "very visual presentations" in language that appeals to their particular motivations.
• Consumers
  Finally, SCP has created an online presence to educate the general public about the advantages of purchasing items made with cleaner cotton. The group also uses traditional publicity campaigns to drive awareness.
  

By respecting the concerns of each of their target groups and selecting appropriate communications channels, the Sustainable Cotton Project reaches more people, and has a greater lasting impact than if they either used a single communications campaign, only reached out to one group at a time, or positioned cleaner cotton to compete with other accepted farming systems. In fact, Grose is quick to point out that cooperation has been key to the group's success: "we position cleaner cotton to complement, not compete, with organic cotton, since the goals are the same: non-GM (genetic modification), family farmers, reduction in chemicals, etc." Treating each group as a valuable component in the whole system has resulted in a highly effective campaign.

Simplifying otherwise complex messages has its pitfalls

It's not all fluffy sweaters and fuzzy mittens, of course. The SCP still faces some challenges given the complexities of the industry. During her town hall presentation, Grose described one of the fallouts of such an effective communications campaign: simple messages are easier for people to grasp, but then you risk oversimplifying the issues to the detriment of your ultimate goal. In the mid-late '90s, for example, the group ran a campaign using the all-American t-shirt as its symbol:

"We took data on chemicals sprayed from all cotton states at that time, and the average yield of fiber per acre, and average amount of cotton in a typical t-shirt, then we did the math...and 1/3 pound [of argicultural chemicals] used for every t-shirt is what it came to at that time in the U.S. It was so effective a message that a host of companies picked it up without doing the math on the cotton they were using...so the data is no longer accurate, yet it is still used by some because it is a simple message."

Unfortunately, there may not be an easy solution to this problem of complex messaging. "Brands love to communicate in sound bites," reminds Grose, which means it's up to those crafting the sound bites to think harder about where they might end up, and how they might be used. Which leads us, often, to looking at the issue from different angles - both from the points of view of each stakeholder group, and from those we haven't traditionally considered.

When asked about the challenges and opportunities involved in reaching different groups with seemingly different interests, Grose responded: "They see cleaner cotton as part of an overall cotton strategy which includes organic and cleaner cotton. It's a significant shift from thinking about the product, to thinking about the cotton business." And that shift in our overall perception of any given "problem" is what will ultimately lead to better, more sustainable solutions in every sector.


Related Posts:
Sustainable Design Town Hall: Sharing Good Ideas

How Not to Do Direct Mail

I just received a direct mail solicitation from a wonderful nonprofit that supports local photographers through exhibitions, education and youth mentoring. I wish so much they had taken a different approach with this mailing, because I can't imagine this one will yield the kind of response they're hoping for.

The package arrived in a standard white no. 10 business envelope. It contained a one-page letter, a semi-gloss, full-color, tri-fold brochure that unfolds into a 12" x 18" poster, and a self-addressed, unstamped reply envelope. What's so wrong with this?

• Concealing the goods.
  Why drop coin on a beautifully printed poster-sized piece, and then hide it in a nondescript envelope that makes it look like junk mail? Either gussy up the mailing container, or make the poster a self-mailer that begs to be unfolded immediately.
• Address anonymous.
  "Dear Friend" is no way to address someone when you're asking for their money. In this day and age of variable printing, there's simply no excuse. And if your marketing director doesn't know what variable printing is, you've got an even bigger problem.
  
• Not quite compelling:
  "Your membership is your ticket to a remarkable range of programs and benefits."
  So much copy, so little targeting.
  The front of this single 8.5" x 11" letter included a litany of member "benefits" directed at all kinds of different people—including artists, art lovers, collectors, and who knows who else. Simply laundry listing your organization's features and hoping readers are willing to pick and choose what matters to them is a great way to make sure nobody pays attention to anything. Pick an audience, and write exclusively to them.
  
• Features do not equal benefits.
  And here's another thing: listing what you offer doesn't explain how your audience will benefit. Don't tell me about your exclusive, members-only parties, tell me how I'll make important career connections and discover new trends before they hit the mainstream.
  
• Letterhead overload.
  I understand the desire to acknowledge a nonprofit's staff, board of directors, advisory committee, and curatorial council members, really I do. But if you're printing this on your letterhead, it means you're repeating this information with every single communication you send out. Why? It might hurt to hear, but you need to ask yourself if the reason has more to do with the staff's needs than your audience's.
  

But all this wasn't enough to turn me off and convince me not to give. No, the straw that broke the camel's back was the flip side of the letter. An entire page dedicated to a collaborative art project that I (little old me) was invited to participate in! How exciting, I thought. And all I have to do to be eligible is purchase a membership and send in my own mail art submission? I looked for the cost of membership on the accompanying brochure/poster. $50 ain't bad, considering I'd also get access to the rest of those features listed so exhaustively on the front. And that's when I noticed the deadline for submissions: May 1, 2009. Receipt date of this package? May 1, 2009.

That's right, folks. I was invited to participate in a project—a project that was supposed to sell me on donating to this organization—on the day of the submission deadline, effectively making me ineligible. That's not an oversight. It's not a mistake. It's a slap in the face to your audience.

This is not a time for this kind of ineptitude, folks. Tighten up! Don't waste your marketing dollars on what has the potential to be a highly effective campaign by not thinking it through. If you need expertise, then ask. But nonprofits can't afford to be making these kinds of mistakes right now.

Write with Intent: Written Messaging in a "Design with Intent" Framework

First, have a look at Dan Lockton's 10-minute slide show on persuasive technology and design with intent, in which he describes various methodologies used to influence user behavior:



As I continue to explore the world of social marketing et al., I've been wondering about the specific role of language in these issues. Designers focus on visual and spacial cues, obviously, and with good reason. There's a strong argument to be made for the idea that modern human language is quickly moving from a verbal core to a visual one. That's a huge debate in and of itself, best left to another post. But there can be no argument that people are becoming increasingly sophisticated information processors when it comes to visual frameworks (that is, we're getting better at deriving meaning from visual cues).

So, where does that leave verbal language? And more specifically, where does that leave the role of persuasive verbal communication? To make this more concrete: copywriters have long insisted that web copy is best served by bullet points, subheads, and other visual means of breaking up text. Shorter sentences and fewer syllables are another way we're encouraged to accommodate this shift in human information processing (since readers are now more used to simply glancing at a screen and immediately deriving meaning from what they see). But is altering the visual appearance of the words the most effective use of verbal language to communicate and persuade (and, ultimately, effect behavior change)?

Using content in addition to form

Often lost in all of this is the actual content. In the case of commercial and social marketing, content is as important an influence as form on a reader's behavior. So if we worry only about the visual appearance of text, we risk failing to provide the meaning it's intended to communicate. It's the effective communication of that meaning that causes a reader to change their attitude or, better still, their behavior. There are several ways writers can increase meaning, and therefore persuasiveness, in their messaging:

1. Avoid passive language, unnecessary modifying clauses, and jargon that may dilute the meaning of your text.
   
2. Acknowledge perceived barriers to behavior change, but emphasize the benefits.
3. Use personalized examples that reinforce the sought-after behavior change (personalized to your reader, not the writer).
4. Integrate a narrative structure that leaves the reader visualizing the process of behavior change.
   

This isn't an exhaustive list. But many of these examples find counterparts in Lockton's presentation above. Number 1, for example, could be compared to the use of unadorned, light-up reminder icons on a car dashboard (a visually active and engaging cue).

Commercial marketers have long understood this, of course (the good ones, anyway). Good social marketers understand it, too (hence the focus on addressing perceived barriers to action). But I'd love to see more academic/theoretical discussion of this within the field. Or maybe it's there and I just haven't found it yet (please point me to it, if you know that's the case). In the meantime, it would serve us marketers well to remember that form and content must work in tandem to effect real behavior change.

Social Media Innovator or Same Old Corporate Snake Oil?

There's an interesting conversation going on at the Ethicurian, who posted about Monsanto's latest foray into public coercion, a.k.a. blogging. The Ethicurian's initial post was nothing more than a short blurb noting that "the biotech giant has not only launched an ad campaign aimed at food's 'thought leaders,' it's digging into its deep pockets to fund a new Facebook presence, Twitter stream, and a blog." The interesting part? Monsanto's Social Media Director chimed in in the comments. To wit:

"The reality of it is that a small group of employees, (Yes, PR people, imagine that, communications people communicating!), who thought we should be part of the online dialog. The anti-Monsanto crowd seems to feel threatened by this. We felt it was important to start offering counterpoints to some of the more factually challenged assertions about us being spread online." (full comment)

Needless to say, the Ethicurian's readers had plenty to say back. What's so intriguing to me about this exchange is not that Monsanto is using social media in their public relations efforts (every smart corporation is these days). And it's not the content of the dialogue (are we surprised that ethical eaters hate Monsanto and Monsanto is indignant that they're hated?). No, what I find so interesting about all this is that Monsanto's PR department figures it can reframe the company by appearing human.

Chris Paton, Social Media Director for the company, is careful to dissociate himself from his company, which is odd given the purpose of his role. He frames himself as an earnest, can't-be-bought free-thinker:

"Myself and the other team members in my area who are starting to participate in the blogosphere, twitter, facebook, etc.. are doing so in addition to their regular workload. It does indeed take some man(and woman) hours to do so. Even more as we're starting to attract attention for even showing up to the discussion and the cyber-pile-on starts up. I don't dispute that Monsanto has spent a good chunk of change on the ad campaign, but I'm not responsible for that, not involved with that, and wish I had a fraction of a fraction of that budget for what I personally think is a more useful effort, engaging our critics in a dialog to see if we can't make some progress...

...I'm not an expert on every thing Monsanto may or may not have done. If I make a comment one way or another about lobbyists, funding, cow health issues, etc.. it can be torn apart by people...

...I commend you for being committed to speaking out for what you belive. I'm just disappointed that people cant belive that i'm saying what i actually believe. My paycheck doesnt buy my beliefs or my soul. If i belived that Monsanto was guilty of the things i read online on a daily basis, you couldnt pay me enough to be a part of it..."

Monsanto has been struggling with their image of a monolithic, international, bully of a corporate conglomerate for years, and their reputation among so-called ethical eaters is only getting worse as our country's food issues gain coverage in the mainstream. So it's interesting to see their public relations department using social media ("a level playing field," Chris calls it) to reframe the company's brand image. Hell, maybe they are just another group of concerned individuals working for what they believe in.

It's what they believe in that scares me so much.

(As an aside, is it too much to ask of corporate America to at least attempt a little literacy when it comes to posting online?)

Harvard Medical School Misses the Point When it Comes to Fundraising

Some organizations are finding themselves mired in controversy as a result of decisions made in response to the dysfunctional economy. Take Harvard Medical School: it turns out that the school has more professors on the Big Pharma dole than anyone—including students—ever knew. About 18% of Harvard Medical professors have reported that "they or a family member had a financial interest in a business related to their teaching, research or clinical care" (and there's no way to know how many unreported relationships exist). This represents a potentially huge conflict of interest, and students are up in arms.

A struggle for research funding

Lack of endowment funding is the primary reason cited for why these professors feel it's appropriate to suck from the pharmaceutical teat without disclosing such relationships to the students they claim to be teaching:

"School officials see corporate support for their faculty as all the more crucial, as the university endowment has lost 22 percent of its value since last July and the recession has caused philanthropic contributors to retrench."

In other words, the school doesn't have enough funding to support faculty research. So faculty turn to the pharmaceutical companies. But is it appropriate for an institution tasked with teaching our nations' new doctors to allow a commercial industry to secretly underwrite those who teach?

More to the point: is this kind of financial relationship necessary?

An alternative solution

As the Times piece indicates, the potential conflict of interest, the lack of disclosure rules, and the student and public backlash are all causing real harm to Harvard Medical's reputation. It may even damage the school's ability to raise what little endowment funds are still available.

But what if the school leveraged the need to preserve classroom integrity to shore up funding sources outside of Big Pharma? What if they framed their fundraising efforts with a core message that read something like this:

We need your support to keep Big Pharma out of our classrooms, so our next generation of doctors can be trained objectively and fairly.

This would need to be supported, of course, by action. School officials would need to demonstrate that they're taking what internal steps they can to prevent such a tragedy—steps like instituting rules requiring the disclosure of financial relationships to both officials and students (or better yet, limiting or prohibiting financial relationships between faculty and industry).

With proper messaging, this controversy might just be turned around to actually solve the underlying problem causing the whole thing. Sadly, school officials will probably miss this fundraising opportunity and instead plaster a bandage over the controversy. Hopefully, it won't be a Band-Aid™ brand one.

Nina Simone: Feeling Good

Text-based videos and ads are all the rage right now, but this is by far one of the best I've seen to date. Of course, Nina Simone makes me weak in the knees, so that may explain the warm glow this gives me.

Feeling Good, Nina Simone
by mrfnk

[via Infosthetics]

Kim Rugg: Don't Mention the War

“What really interests me is how when I remove the message—the news—I am left with the messenger. The process brings this messenger to the foreground. The ‘personality’ and character of the paper is therefore amplified.”

Studs Turkel, 1912-2008

"My epitaph is, curiosity did not kill this cat."

Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid

"I don't know why it was that people liked it. The only reason movies are successes is because people like them, and the only reason when they're failures is people don't like them, and everything else is mythology."

—William Goldman, writer (speaking in The Western, 2003)

Mythology is used to explain a lot these days.

Copywriting in Action: Inspiration from the Financial Crisis

Has the financial crisis officially jumped the shark when references to it start creeping into everyday advertising? Or is it just smart marketing to incorporate a ripped-from-the-headlines approach to one's copy? The real answer is, I suspect, that companies feel they can no longer pretend business is just business as usual. But to acknowledge the current economic turmoil or not is not even the big question of the day. The big question is: how do we acknowledge it? This week, I've had two very different approaches arrive in my inbox.

The Sincere and Concerned Approach

King Arthur Flour knows its brand. The company has been around since 1790, and has always stayed true to its core product. As the oldest flour company selling such a basic food staple, King Arthur has closely aligned itself with the notions of family values, nourishment, and responsibility. These ideals are reflected consistently throughout the company's marketing copy, whether online or off (for example, on the side of every bag of flour is printed the company's money-back guarantee—written as a letter directly from the company's president).

The latest newsletter (shown above—click the image to read the whole thing) is no exception. King Arthur has stuck with its brand identity and framed the financial crisis according to how it actually impacts its customers.

"OK, let's face it: the world is in financial turmoil...To many, it means figuring out new ways to put food on the table. And that's where we can help. King Arthur has been putting bread on American tables since 1790. Through the Civil War, the Great Depression, World War II, and countless financial downturns, King Arthur has been a steady, solid presence.

King Arthur isn't glitzy and glamorous, not the brand du jour. We're just there. Always. To help you sustain your family with good, homemade meals..."

The copy is conversational, intimate almost. It addresses the reader as a confidant. King Arthur can get away with this because of the brand it's already built that reinforces this approach. More than that, it can get away with it because all the claims are true.

The truly remarkable piece of this e-newsletter is not, however, the style or tone of the writing. The real kicker is that the e-newsletter isn't selling a single thing. In fact, it's doing the opposite—it contains a free recipe for coffee cake, and links to free services provided by the company (free baking classes, a free baking hotline, and the company's blog). This reinforces the email's message: King Arthur is a trusted friend here to help you in a time of need. Yes, we're just talking about flour. But the company has managed to remain human despite such long-running success. Perhaps that's why it's had such long-running success.

The Exploit It For All It's Worth Approach

And in the other corner, we've got an email I received the day before King Arthur sent me their offer of help. It's worth noting to start that this email was an unsolicited spam ad for an e-course on marketing. I'll never understand marketers who insist on using spam to try and sell their junk. The email amounts to a press release from two "intellectual property experts" who share a blog and are now trying to cash in on the current financial crisis.

"The same economic meltdown that is wiping out stock portfolios like a Category 5 hurricane is going to open opportunities for savvy bloggers, both entrepreneurial and corporate, to generate revenue that may have been elusive during better times. Two innovation entrepreneurs have developed a way for bloggers to learn how to thrive even when the market dives.

'These eCourses will help bloggers identify the numerous opportunities around them and embark upon a path of making money from those opportunities,' says Monroe. '...We put these eCourses together to help bloggers develop those skills and game plans so they can sail in smooth waters when many others are still in that Category 5 hurricane.'"

Let's start with the tone of the copy, which uses a hurricane metaphor (and not just any hurricane, either, but a category five hurricane) to raise alarm bells. That kind of fear-mongering is just flat-out exploitative, particularly given the significance of what's at stake for the reader. The rhyming phrases are a nice touch copy-wise ("learn how to thrive even when the market dives"), but entirely inappropriate for the subject matter. Adding levity to a crisis is one thing, but this is just belittling.

Perhaps I shouldn't be surprised by this kind of copy, given the subject matter. The pitch, after all, is written to appeal to the reader's profit motive, pure and simple. But isn't unchecked profit motive what got us into this mess in the first place? Don't get me wrong: selling a course to teach bloggers how to capitalize on the economic crisis isn't unethical in and of itself. These folks are consultants (like me, in a sense), and selling ideas is a perfectly legitimate way to make a living. But how you sell matters as much as what you sell.

These are two dramatically different approaches to acknowledging the financial crisis. Both are legitimate in their own right. The question becomes: what kind of message do you want to send to your audience? Or better still: what kind of message does your audience really want to hear?

Sense or Nonsense?

When writing marketing copy, or political reportage, or educational materials, we tend to shrink from notions of creativity and color. My motor really gets running, though, when writers actually take a risk and explore the hell out of their medium. George Saunders' recent New Yorker column is a great example:

"Sarah Palin knows a little something about God’s will, knowing God quite well, from their work together on that natural-gas pipeline, and what God wills is: Country First. And not just any country! There was a slight error on our signage. Other countries, such as that one they have in France, reading our slogan, if they can even read real words, might be all, like, “Hey, bonjour, they are saying we can put our country, France, first!” Non, non, non, France! What we are saying is, you’d better put our country first, you merde-heads, or soon there will be so much lipstick on your pit bulls it will make your berets spin!" [Full essay]

Type Is Art

A beautiful experiment in letter forms, Type Is Art proves that the arttypography is greater than the sum of its parts.

[via i love typography]

You Gotta be Careful When Making Green Marketing Claims

When TerraChoice's Six Sins of Greenwashing report was released last fall, it brought with it whispers of green fatigue, and raised the specter of Big Business Bullsh--. Could it be that corporate co-opting of sustainability had led to a market full of misleading claims and outright lies? Go figure. But as the public's sustainability discussion moves along, governments are getting involved in an attempt to curb the marketplace. So if you're one of the many companies offering up green claims, it's in your best interest to start paying attention to what you can and can't (or should and shouldn't) say.



The Six Sins of Greenwashing report analyzed over a thousand green claims made by businesses, and found that only one was legitimately honest. The rest committed one or more of the following sins:

1. The sin of hidden trade-offs
   Focusing on one environmental benefit while ignoring other essential issues.
   
2. The sin of no proof
   Lack of third-party auditing to back up any claims.
   
3. The sin of vagueness
   Using words and claims with broad or multiple meanings, resulting in an essentially meaningless claim.
   
4. The sin of irrelevance
   Making a green claim that is already inherent to the product or service being marketed, as though there's something special about this one.
   
5. The sin of fibbing
   Outright lying.
   
6. The sin of the lesser of two evils
   Making claims within a product category that is inherently environmentally damaging (i.e. no matter what green claims are made, the product is by definition bad for the environment).
   

The PDF report (also available here) offers recommendations for both marketers and consumers. The ultimate goal is to prevent consumers from becoming so jaded by misleading claims that they give up on green or sustainable businesses altogether.

In addition to TerraChoice's recommendations, both the U.S. and Canada have issued their own guidelines. Our neighbors to the north go beyond the legal requirements for Canadian labeling compliance, offering fairly in-depth recommendations for businesses who make particular environmental claims. The PDF report is a useful tool no matter what country your business operates in.

Our own government also offers guidelines for environmental claims in advertising. Regulated by the FTC, the bulk of these guidelines are legally binding, although I haven't done the legwork to determine just how frequently and under what circumstances these laws are enforced (keeping up with the marketplace's now ubiquitous green claims would certainly pose a challenge for any organization). An even more detailed guide is available on their site, but be aware that the FTC is in the process of updating these in response to the rise of the green marketplace.

Addressing Your Own Green Claims

Though boning up on the federal regulations is a must for any business flirting with green claims, it's not just the government's ire you need to worry about. Speaking the truth is essential to ensure credibility among your own customers. So, once you understand what you can and can't say, you ought to take a look at what you already are saying. At the very least, you need to ask yourself:

• Are my claims specific?
• Are my claims clear and understandable?
• Are my claims verifiable by a reputable third party?
• Do my claims accurately represent the purchasing issues a customer might face when buying my product?
• Do my claims provide enough context for the customer to make an informed decision?

And remember, if you're not sure you can back up what you claim, don't bother saying it. For more information about gauging just how green a business is, see The Case-by-Case for Sustainability.

Headline Hilarity, or Giving the Vag the Respect It Deserves

The SF Chron is often accused of being a rag, and headlines like this one don't help dispel such a reputation. The play on words shown below is, while hilarious, a little too much personal info for my taste. Nothing's funnier than a nice play on words, but please mind the images you conjure up!



I also feel the need to point out that such a headline seems to reinforce the lack of respect given this particular body part. The headline manages to completely ignore the actual point of the article: Eve Ensler's visit to the Bay Area in support of V-Day, a campaign to stop violence against women. The sad truth, too, is that a headline about an anti-violence campaign is likely to draw in far fewer readers than the cheap joke that ran.

Six Word Memoirs Summarize It All

My sis sent me a link yesterday to Six Word Memoirs, a new book from Smith Magazine. It's exactly what you'd think: a collection of memoirs only six words long. Have you ever attempted to summarize your life in six words only? It ain't easy.

Go ahead, try it.

Like many of the examples on an NPR feature about the book, my initial attempts tended toward the philosophical:

The world confuses me – always will.
Wonder when I’ll figure it out?
Fear is powerful—love more so.

These kinds of creative exercises are important to any writer, because they make you focus on word choice, on intention, on voice. They force you to decide what exactly you're trying to accomplish - am I summing up my entire life, or just my views on life? Should I take a single moment and spend six words describing it and what it meant to me in the grand scheme of my more-than-six-word life? This was the list I ended up with:

The memories are mixed – mostly good.
Angry early on; I’m calmer now.
Over time, life became about love.
Never thought I’d be a writer!
My family is nuts – me, too.
Boston born...California bound...home soon?
I don’t see my nephew enough.

I found that with just six words to spare, there's room to convey only a single emotion, or expose only a single moment or sentiment. You have to choose between silly or solemn. I suppose that's fitting, like life.

How does your six word memoir read?

Inside the Mind of a Type Designer

I am a sucker for process. I drool at the thought of reams of artist sketches, I love the behind-the-scenes letters sometimes exhibited in museums to accompany a given collection, and I absolutely, positively get a kick out of reading the how of a what. So I owe a big thanks to Kris Sowersby for exposing the shadows of his type design process to the light, for all to read.



Kris doesn't just provide a behind-the-scenes how-to. He also reveals his own personal approach to designing typefaces, and he gives us a little hint at just how much work goes into something as "mundane" as making letters. This is such a great example of how the ever-so-slightest details, imperceptible to most non-designers, are the be all and end all for those of us who spend our time making things that look nice actually work.

The Utterly Brilliant Limerick Database

Yes, I am a dork. But I have a deep love of limericks for no good reason, other than that I am a dork. Thanks to Coudal, I now have a huge (though sometimes hit-or-miss) repository to distract myself with.

From the Limerick Database:

Famous books rewritten as limericks: Hitchhikers Guide to the Galaxy
In PJs, no planet, oh poo!
What is the last earthman to do?
In despair with no tea,
he's now forced to flee
as his brain now explains 42
---

, ` & #
$ @ | + . -
8 7 6 5 4
" * _
? ; ! AS;DOFB2

(Comma tick ampersand hash,
Dollar at pipe plus dot dash.
Eight sev'n six five four,
Quote star underscore,
Question mark semi-colon bang MASH.)
---

A woman in liquor production
Owns a still of exquisite construction.
The alcohol boils
Through magnetic coils.
She says that it's "proof by induction."

Yeah, yeah, yeah. No comments from the peanut gallery!

How Word Choice Influences Behavior: The Hotel Towel Example

If you ever need to influence people's behavior, you might consider Dr. Robert Cialdini's approach. Cialdini has conducted numerous studies exploring how different types of messaging impacts the public's actual behavior. One such study focuses on those cards in your hotel bathrrom urgng you to reuse your towels. As it turns out, how those cards are worded makes a big difference in whether or not guests pay attention:

"In this series of experiments, Dr. Cialdini and his colleagues created four cards asking guests to reuse their towels. Three cards contained a pro-environment message, while the fourth informed guests that the majority of hotel guests reuse towels when asked. In rooms with the fourth card, towels were reused 34 percent more frequently." [from the Inside Influence Report [note: link broken, try the home page, emphasis added]

There are several conclusions that can be drawn from this research:

1. Word choice matters...a lot;
2. People are more likely to act (or not act) based on what they think others are doing (or not doing);
3. It is possible to realize dramatic behavior change with very low investment.
   

So the next time you're trying to get someone to do something, think carefully about how you deliver your message.

Sorted Books Project by Nina Katchadourian

This is so up my alley. Artist Nina Katchadourian's Sorted Books project groups titles to create a flash of meaning between texts. Each arrangement is intended to reflect the library from which the books were pulled.



I'm tempted to see what my own bookshelves say about me...

[via Swiss Miss]

How does your language define your future?

The Aymara language reverses past and future by referring to forward-occurring events using language denoting the past. Huh? Simply put, Aymara speakers do not subscribe to the same past-present-future tenses that almost the entire rest of the world does.

Just imagine what it would be like if your future depended on your past, and the only way you could communicate "will" or "want to" was to speak as though you already "had" or "did."



When we communicate with one another—be it in words, pictures, or hand gestures for that matter—we make some basic assumptions. We assume the other person is parsing our message the same way we would. We assume that the other person believes in a chronological past-present-future, connects the dots the same way we do, implicitly understands what the hell we are talking about.

But this isn't always the case and our assumptions often cause our messages to fall not on deaf ears, but simply different ears. Or eyes—let's take another example: about 10 million people in the U.S. have difficulty distinguishing red from green (a simple form of color blindness). What does that mean if you are a mapmaker and you color two neighboring countries red and green, respectively? Or if an architect uses these two colors to signify where load-bearing columns should go? These are unlikely examples, of course, but they demonstrate how imperative it is to consider our assumptions about the viewer.

While most of us don't encounter many folks like the Aymara, we still must carefully consider our messages and how we deliver them to others. Whether we're exchanging pleasantries with the coffee shop clerk in the morning, talking our way out of a speeding ticket on the freeway, or teaching surgeons how to handle a scalpel, the words and images we use to convey meaning may have a much different effect than we anticipate.

So don't let assumptions about your audience ruin your chances of communicating your message. Think about how they process information, what they value, how they speak and read and write. Just think about them and then worry about how to say what you want to say.

Are Cries Over "Eco-Fatigue" a Big Yawn?

Ahem. I just received the following email from the company that inspired my post below:

"We hope you enjoyed the very special trend briefing we sent you yesterday. If you didn't, then please pour yourself a strong cup of coffee and take another close look. It's a SPOOF. Fake. Not to be taken at face value. Even most of the sites we referred to are, well, ours—and entirely fictitious.

We thought it would be fun, just for once, to mock overzealous marketers, crass consumerism and—above all—ourselves. :-) So please don't ditch your pet, stay in ugly hotels, pollute the earth, paint your walls turquoise or start marketing to unborn babies, OK?..."

So, take my criticism of the trendwatching.com report referenced below with a large grain of salt. Dammit.



Sustainable innovation is really rolling now, and the naysayers are already crying foul. A particularly short-sighted trendwatching.com report describes consumers' growing impatience with green marketing as a cry for "authenticity."



Trend watchers, style dictators and pop culture aficionados all insist that sustainability is nothing more than a passing fad, and as such can and should be summarily dismissed. By falling into the sustainability trap, these critics complain, companies "bend over and take the fun out of robust, honest products."

This is where trendwatching.com (and the consumers they supposedly mirror), show a remarkable and unforgivable short-sightedness. Who says that sustainable products can't be "robust" and "honest," and hell, even sexy? Since when did "robust" and "honest" come to mean destructive? When companies charge a lot of money for their "insights" into consumerism, it behooves them to dig a little deeper and ask the less obvious questions.

What the trendwatching.com report fails to really identify is the underlying cause of "eco-fatigue." Consumers aren't sick of having eco-options at all; in fact, every day they're buying more "green" products and asking (no, demanding) more from their vendors. What consumers are fed up with is disingenuous marketing tactics that attempt to paint every new product and service with a greener paintbrush. They're also sick of being treated as though being informed is somehow a bad thing (which is itself a side-effect of the Bush Administration's insistence that we all just sit down and shut up).

One of the most telling lines in the report describes the eco-fatigued as being "treated like unruly infants by Al Gore and his ilk." The irony of such a knee-jerk, inaccurate depiction of this market segment just highlights the laziness of the writers/researchers. Have they really been listening to what Gore and "his ilk" are actually saying? I think, rather, they've been putting their hands over their ears, squinching their eyes real tight, and singing "Mary had a little lamb" so as not to actually have to listen to a viewpoint that might make them really think. People, it's okay to think.

I don't believe there is anything wrong with wanting to buy stuff, or have fun. Sure, there are pious, preaching "greenies" trying to shake their finger at the big, wasting consumerists. But who really gives a shit? The idea is to build consumer interest so that business must take notice. Because business and government (which are pretty much the same thing in this country), will never act in the best interest of the people unless the people demand it.

And so we talk to the people. Gore tries to light a fire, to educate. The beauty of our freedom here is that we're constitutionally granted the right to pursue happiness. But that doesn't mean we're granted the right to ignore the consequences. Because we can play head-in-the-sand all we want, but mother nature's going to catch up with us eventually.

If the eco-fatigued, those in favor of bald-faced consumerism, really want to keep consuming without thought, than more power to them. But those folks better remember that if we want to consume without limits, we all need to find a way to keep us in the stuff. Because stuff will run out, unless we start making sustainable stuff. So shut up already about green products being somehow less fun. 'Cause it ain't gonna be too much fun when your favorite nightclub starts charging $24 for a beer because the brewery is facing a shortage of hops and water.

After all, I want my beer to be cheap and delicious as much as the next girl. And if sustainability is the only way to ensure that it stays that way, quit yer whining and get sustainable. Let's try to have our beer and drink it, too.


Further Reading:
Fads, Frames and the Environment
Businesses Prep for Green Fad to Fade

How PowerPoint Took Down the Columbia Space Shuttle

I don't build PowerPoint presentations as a general rule, but not for the reasons that many of my colleagues avoid same. While many designers absolutely despise PowerPoint for its ungodly design limitations and cheesy effects that are inevitably overused by presenters, I avoid it because I think it's senseless overall.

By senseless, I mean that the information provided within a PowerPoint presentation, as well as the method of presentation itself, is better achieved through other means. That is: not only are the graphic representations allowable via PowerPoint too often ineffective, the delivery method is ineffective, and the very existence of a PowerPoint slide too often renders the human presenter ineffective, too. Therefore, all of the information contained within any given PowerPoint slideshow can and usually should be delivered through more appropriate means. What are those means? Simply, they are:

• The speaker's own words
• Printed handouts for later reference
  

Maybe, you say, if the PowerPoint slides were nicely done, they'd have more of an impact. This is true, to a finite degree. What constitutes "nicely done?" I'd include:

• Relevant content
  
• Quiet graphic elements that don't intrude on this relevant content
• Logical progression

But then you're faced with the problem of what the presenter and the audience each do with the content of each "nicely done" slide. Does the presenter read the slide verbatim? Usually—thereby negating the need for the slide in the first place. Does the audience read the slide while the presenter is talking? Usually—thereby by negating the need for the presenter.

Which leads us to: the use of an abbreviated medium such as a slide to deliver a content-rich message is inevitably damaging to the message itself. PowerPoint typically leads the speaker to reduce his message to a series of bullet points. The speaker's elaboration on each bullet point—if provided at all—is often lost to note takers, slide scanners and the spaced out. In such cases when the PowerPoint presentation is turned into a PDF file and emailed off to the audience after the presentation, all of the speaker's elaborations and nuanced points are gone, forgotten.

Edward Tufte, god of information design, goes a step further than myself:

George Orwell's classic essay 'Politics and the English Language' gets right the interplay between quality of thought and cognitive style of presentation: 'The English language becomes ugly and inaccurate because of our thoughts are foolish, but the slovenliness of our language makes it easier for us to have foolish thoughts.' Imagine Orwell writing about PP: 'PowerPoint becomes ugly and inaccurate because our thoughts are foolish, but the slovenliness of PowerPoint makes it easier for us to have foolish thoughts.'" [Ask E.T.]

Which brings me to how PowerPoint took down the Columbia Space Shuttle. Tufte is renowned for his analysis of a particular NASA PowerPoint presentation, in which he argues that the PowerPoint presentations—28 slides in total—used to assess the safety of the Columbia were inherently flawed thanks to the bulleted-list format (PowerPoint's fault) and lousy choice of language and progression (presenter's fault).

The analysis is fascinating and well worth reading in its entirety, as it describes many of the nuanced ways in which PowerPoint quietly destroys the messages it delivers. Why shoot yourself in the foot by using a medium that necessarily simplifies, omits and distorts the very thing you're trying to communicate?

McJob Security: McDonald's Fights to Change the English Language

What started as a humble roadside burger stand now reaches across the globe, an icon of American life for better or worse. And many say "worse." McDonald's has been blamed for America's obesity epidemic, for anti-labor practices and now for trying to redefine what has come to be known as the "McJob."

You know what a McJob is: dead-end, low-paying, unstimulating, unskilled. The word has been in use for nearly 20 years, and in the Oxford English Dictionary since 2001. But according to a recent Times article, Ronald and the rest of the McDonald's crew want the meaning changed to "reflect a job that is stimulating, rewarding ... and offers skills that last a lifetime."

That's quite the turnaround, isn't it? And it begs the question: who controls a company's reputation? Clearly, McDonald's has invested millions of marketing dollars into building their brand. They've largely succeeded, too: they've been the top-selling quick serve chain for years and you don't get that way without convincing a few customers to spend their dollars.

But a quick glance at McDonald's marketing campaigns over the decades reveals an interesting trend. Every single marketing "theme" (as listed on the company's website) focuses on the individual customer experience. McDonald's has spent all their marketing karma, it seems, on convincing the consumer that it's all about them. This isn't a bad idea—when you're choosing a fast food restaurant, you're looking for immediate gratification at your own price point. Appealing to this consumer drive makes perfect sense.

But "marketing" doesn't happen in a vaccuum. It's not simply slogans and logos and slick brochures. Marketing has to take into account the company as a whole, and particularly the values and principles behind the product or service. But wait, you might point out, what about all those McDonald's commercials with smiling employees who seem so darn happy to be working for the multi-million dollar chain?

Like I said, marketing isn't just about the consumer-facing collateral (whether print, broadcast, online or whatever). Maybe if McDonald's spent a little more effort actually making employees happy—from the bottom up—they wouldn't have to paint a rosier-than-real picture of what it's like to work there. And then, just maybe, they wouldn't have to fight so hard against the public's entirely organic perception of the dead-end McJob.