THE IDEA BARRAGE

On beginnings and endings

2010-02-14T00:04:54Z

The way I grew up watching movies at the cinema was kind of odd. At what time I arrived and entered the theater didn't matter to me. I would walk in and sit in the back. I started the movie wherever I happened to. Then stayed past the ending until it started over again and reached the part I had already seen. How the story begins and ends is not in the control of the filmmaker. It is left to chance as affected by any of the innumerable forces that led up to my off-schedule arrival. This has been my relationship with movies for as long as I can remember. And as such, it has never made a difference to me whether I knew about the story's twist or ending beforehand.

Are there feature film examples where the narrative does not rely on a beginning and ending -- the viewer may enter at any particular point? Or is it by definition that a narrative must have a start and end to tell a story? Even so, can an end lead into a start of a story seamlessly? Or do none of these questions really make any sense?

(Photo: Making crude flyers on recycled legal-sized sheets of paper.)

Why TEN?

2010-02-07T13:00:00Z

As with most great ideas the concept of TEN first revealed itself over a cocktail beverage at a bar while yelling across the table to a couple of friends. But let's not talk about my issues. TEN is a film festival that I personally would like to go and see -- and not just because of my involvement in it which requires me to attend. A team of filmmaker-types assembled around TEN to put it on, not because I know little of film making (again let's not focus on my issues) but because it is amazingly wonderful to see big ideas take their very first steps. To be there, present as it began. And to have its introduction be challenged by the constraints of time and resources, forcing it into even more creativity. How can this event possibly be anything but a spectacle? I hope to see you there.

The Toxicity of Bad Management

2010-02-04T17:48:47Z

I was just getting a coffee and a snack at La Boulange which is a small chain of French-style bakery and breakfast places here in SF. They have 4-5 of them in the city.

I paid with a crisp twenty I had just gotten from the ATM. When I handed over the bill, the woman at the counter glared at it, then held it up to the light to locate the all-important metal strip inside the bill, then swiped it with one of those pens who's ink turns dark only on a fake bill but remains transparent on a genuine note.

"What's with all the security?" I asked her.

"Well," she said, "there have been a lot of fake twenties getting passed in this neighborhood recently. They said if we take a fake twenty, it will get taken out of our tips!"

So, essentially, lazy and irresponsible management (and probably more accurately, middle management: this is going to be the kind of place which has a "store manager" who makes about 15% more than the counter people or gets a token revenue share if they "hit their targets for the quarter"), but management none the less at these stores has placed anti-counterfeiting responsibility on their counter staff! Think about this for a second.

Can you imagine a crazier thing to do? Should twelve or fifteen dollars per hour cover anti-counterfeiting efforts? Is there a commensurate bonus associated with rejecting a fake bill? Of course there isn't. There is only the fear of penalty and a refusal to take responsibility at the appropriate level in the company for a problem like this.

Now, endowing this woman at the counter with that kind of fear and responsibility passes directly and instantly to me, a sleepy customer who has already gotten over the hump and been impressed enough with them to want to pay six dollars for a coffee and croissant. A basic bad management decision created a bad experience for me first thing in the morning, and caused me to think about their brand as jerky corporate types rather than people capable of making a three dollar plain croissant. It was also the first story I told my co-workers and now La Boulange is banned for all of us.

I wonder, what happens when this woman does encounter a fake bill? She's very motivated to keep her tips and so refuses to take the bill and give the person whatever it is they have ordered. There may already be a coffee poured for the person, a morning bun in the warmer for them. What now? Would this situation potentially mean danger for the stalwart counter person? A scene in the restaurant? Food waste at the very least? Does possession of a fake twenty even imply knowledge of it? Might the person passing the fake just be a guy from the shoe store up the street who was handed it as change for the fifty dollar bill his Aunt gave him for his 23rd birthday? Has the person who handed down the "take a fake twenty and I'll take your tips" rule thought any of this though? You bet they haven't. My guess is that that person's manager handed down a similar decree of punishment that morning at a special magers meeting. How come the tip-stealing threat is a good motivator in the first place? My guess would be that the base wage is such that getting an extra twenty dollars per shift from the tip jar actually matters a lot. Again, this is indicative to me of bad management at several basic levels.

Okay, got it, enough! Why am I belaboring this? I'm not just having a grumpy morning. I think this is a living example of an attitude which has become the norm in big business in the U.S. and has started to infect small business more and more. This is a great example of the fundamental Toxicity of Bad Management. When a real and basic problem comes up for an organization, management hands responsibility for the fix down to the lowest level it can and in a lot of cases sets up an enforcement mechanism based on financial penalty. This is a kind of "anti-bonus" mentality and thinking about it now probably isn't even legal without a very permissive contract structure with your employees. Whatever the case, at the very least this is definitive Bad Business and has been a mounting problem in this country's business culture for decades now. This same attitude, writ much larger, is a core component of our current economic mess. Bad management is always toxic, and not just in the scope of a single transaction or the company at the mercy of it.

The picture at the top is from a former local of mine down in LA. It's a similar deal, but in this case they have taken the additionally insane step of making it their customer's responsibility to manage their employee's schedules. See if you can guess where the $15 will come from?

Why won't Dick fuck off?

2010-01-03T20:55:31Z

I'm visiting my parents for the holidays. They watch "real news" which is surreal enough as it is. The other night, in the wake of the underpants bomber stuff, Dick Cheney of all people was quoted as saying that "Obama isn't doing enough" which I think loosely translates to "isn't torturing enough brown people" or something roughly equivalent.

Now, for a second, I just had my normal "Gads, what a turbo-moron that guy is" reaction which I almost always have when confronted with quotes from members of that cult-of-an-administration. But then it occurred to me, I was thinking in terms of THAT administration! STILL!

By way of comparison, imagine hearing Dan Quayle quoted in foreign policy news, more than a year into the Clinton administration! NEVER HAPPEN. Dick's opinion should really not have mattered much during the long darkness of those eight years, and it sure as hell doesn't matter now. I referred to this conversationally as the "sticky residue" of the neocons and for the media it seems to be a little like that goo left on an SUV after the removal of a yellow ribbon sticker, it will take a while to scrub off.

Dualistic Advertising

2009-10-23T16:30:00Z

I despise advertising in so may ways (my philosophy on opposites applied) which is to say I love advertising in so many ways. And having watched this video of Rory Sutherland speaking at TED, it confirms that. You can't hate ads for being manipulative. Manipulation is not bad. I am a designer and design itself is manipulation. The part to dislike is the way advertising often fails to entertain, educate, beautify. Instead it often intrudes in the most irrelevant of contexts and unwelcome situations.

A couple of weeks ago an idea popped up in my head. Someone told a story about a couple of kids, siblings, who left school on a Friday after having written all over their bodies with markers and returned to school Monday still covered with the same marks.

The idea:

What if commercials, or other formats of advertising, always came with dual messages? One message would aim to satisfy the marketing need to sell a product. The other would aim to satisfy an altruistic goal.

Effectively this lessens the intrusiveness of an ad. It advertises a product, sure, but clearly serves to benefit the community at the same time. With regard to the kids scenario above, a television commercial for Sharpie would promote not only the strength of the ink within every fun, vibrant, colorful, permanent marker but remind parents as well about the downsides of child neglect.

To the audience, a message on the issues of child neglect doesn't come across as intrusive. In fact it should be spread. Viral plus karma?

The result:

Ads not only become more effective but become a public service as well.

Wanted: Reputation Farmer

2009-10-16T15:34:04Z

We are digitizing ourselves more and more in every which way we can. We will probably continue doing this until that one day when a Giant Flying Magnet visits the earth and accidentally erases all digital data. Or when that corporation controlling most power companies decide to hold electricity hostage and turns off the internet (topics for another post).

Unproven assumptions that are likely to be true:

In the future a good chunk of our lives will be virtual and we ourselves will have virtual representations online. Since we will do much of our activity online, our virtual selves (much like our real selves now) will develop reputations. Our reputation will be shaped by how well we participate, behave. Records of these will be collected, compiled, saved somewhere by someone where it is safe and permanent.

As the world completely digitizes, trust and privacy issues will be at the foreground. Honor filters will be put in place everywhere. Our reputation must be good to surpass honor filters which identify those who are trustworthy and those who are not. We will need to pass honor filters in order to participate in communities, commerce, conversations, everywhere people exchange and interact online.

A reputation is fragile, it is something to guard and protect. A good reputation will be something very valuable. A good reputation takes time to cultivate. You must start now. Today is not yet this future. You have time to establish yourself early by being a good digital citizen, a digizen?

Ahem, there is also time to build an entire farm of reputations. One could do this for good or for bad. I suggest doing things for good, but this can really only be done for bad. Unless it is intended as a way to protect identities as with a witness protection program. Other than that, it can really only be used for criminal profit.

Go get dirty like a good farmer. Till the soil and plant the seeds now. Come said future you will be ready for harvest. It's easy to start. Set up a fake set of users interacting with each other, helping build each other's reputation. Joe approves a Linkedin request that he and Jane worked together for years and he gives her a stunning testimonial. Jane purchases an eBay item from Joe and she gives him a super high rating. And so on. Might even be possible to automate this.

Well, this is just an idea for your information. Personally, I don't have time to be a criminal and do evil deeds. Which is why I am passing this on. But my advice is still what a friend use to always say in exit... "Don't be fraudulent!"

Cool is the new Popular

2009-07-14T05:50:28Z

It's been a huge disconnection around me lately, and I think it's important to point out that popular does not equal cool. Would you rather have 100 cool users or 1000 users? For me, the answer is always always always 100 cool users. Well duh, right? Not so! Turns out for *almost everyone* in america, they'd take the 1000 users, not matter who they were or what they were up to or what impact their use of your product had on its brand.

Let's call this "Coca-Cola Economics" (CCE for short). For me, this line of thinking ties directly back to the DNA of the Old Economy: the blockbuster, hit making, top 40, the superstar. I believe it's all but antithetical to the DNA of the New Economy: the conceptual age / long tail, deep and vertical, featureful, open source, economy of free.

Is popularity... bad? Certainly not, but cool should always trump popular and act as your guide though the inspirations toward mediocrity that popularity injects. In America at least, popular almost always equates to poor quality, bad taste, gratuitous execution. From McDonalds to the Joanas Brothers, this kind of CCE-based bullshit exists not because of organic demand or genuine cool factor, but because of a researched, manufactured, and carefully engineered demand, a primary tool of the Old Economy. CCE's ability to engineer demand depends, sadly, on an uneducated, undiscerning audience which is why Kentucky Friend Chicken can only garner an ironic appreciation in say, Japan, while it basks in genuine appreciation here in the states.

This is all to say that, in the New Economy, Cool has a better chance of success and longevity, and yes even making money than Popular does. On the Web, where communication is fast, knowledge easy, education and taste-making are effectively side effects of every blog entry and every twitter exchange. Bullshit can't survive, and critical mass means the beginning of the end. What happens to Facebook's cool factor when your mother and father have accounts? What happened to MySpace when Murdoch bought it? What happens when you try to apply Old Economy thinking to the New Economy?

Thankfully for all of us who love the Web, failure happens.

I (kinda) hate Virgin America

2009-07-07T04:52:59Z

I either love or not. I don't find a problem with hate because I don't see it as the opposite. For example, if you ever get to look at my Yelp reviews it's either max stars on one. The movies I'd run to go see are the ones with the best and worst review at the same time. Basically, I don't find the middle interesting.

So when I say I hate Virgin America I mean that in the best way. I do. I don't think they should stop doing business. I merely mean that I had an experience which I find frustrating. Which I will never forget.

Tap screens. Right behind my head. My head is what tries to sleep. Until last, I've only flown short distances. Last week I flew direct to New York City. I only fly direct flights. I looked forward to sleeping. Tap - tap - tap, on the way there. Tap - tap - tap, on the way back.

I have a theory on decibels. Have you known someone who gets really frustrated when trying to sleep and the neighbors next door are playing the television or stereo too loud? I try to tell them that it's not about decibels. That I've seen them fall asleep with their own television or stereo on, in noisier places. I explain that what really frustrates them in that scenario is the 'how dare they invade my space'. The decibel coming through the wall isn't nearly loud enough to keep anyone awake. But the 'how dare they' factor is. In truth, if they knew their neighbor, or if they were invited to that party coming through the wall, it wouldn't even cross their mind. And they would sleep like baby.

So what was it about Virgin America that made the tapping behind my head bother me so much? Well, it isn't decibels. Try it, even with the highest spirits it isn't as easy to ignore. Weren't there similar water tortures from wars to this effect? As a designer, I also saw right through it. Clearly it was bad design. The fact that the tap interface had a redundant remote hard button menu on the armrest tells me they realized this already. Yet, they've stuck with the touch screen. And people don't favor using the remote cause it is trapped in a hole inside the shared arm rest.

I tried, I really did. I closed my eyes and counted sheep - so to speak. Tap - tap - tap. I think the kid behind me was playing a game on the screen. It required a lot of tapping. And since the tap screen had to be cheap enough to have on every seat, I suspect it isn't as sensitive as it can be. So one has to tap harder. Harder if the first didn't go!

On the way to NYC I took the redeye. On the way back I took a day flight. I learned my lesson. And sure enough there it was again. Tap - tap - tap.

Why didn't I turn around and say anything? Because I knew that the kid wasn't tapping any harder than what was required of him. I tested it myself and I couldn't avoid poking at the seat in front of me. I knew that the designer was to blame for this. And as a designer, I had to eat it.

Image: The obligatory bathroom mirror camera phone shot.

Relive historical events in time accurate tweets

2009-07-06T01:42:50Z

I was reading Malcolm Gladwell's piece here in the New Yorker and got glassy eyed over to this idea instead.

Personally, I like having certain tweets sent directly to my phone as text messages. I pay for unlimited SMS cause I like this way of messaging. Now let's say I'm someone who's really into history. I see plays and read books about historical events, which is great, but how about a new way to consume in this new medium a lot of us find ourselves immersed in today?

I am imagining an experience where I can subscribe to the twitter feed of, let's say, Lawrence of Arabia during the time when he led the revolt against the Ottoman Army. In real-time accuracy, only decades back, I receive play by play tweets from T.E. himself as the days passed trekking across the desert.

Tweet example:

T.E.Lawrence We could not lightly draw water after dark, for OMG there were snakes swimming in the pools or clustering in knots around their brinks!!

8 minutes ago from Camel API

This way of storytelling is only possible today, where wherever we go we carry a device which we don't mind interrupting us from time to time.

The next step past this is mixed media where the play by play comes at you beyond one single channel. But that's another idea and it's too early to get into that.

Image: Something not human trapped at the California Academy of Sciences basement in San Francisco.

Happily ever after doesn't cut it

2009-03-16T01:36:21Z

[So far a day without a single word spoken to anyone. Continuing on the topic of unfettering, thinking about story endings.]

Once upon a time in a land far away people went to the cinema in a way very unlike how we do here today. I was a kid then and I believe it has significantly affected the way I consume films and who knows what else. I remember, it wasn't too important to get to the cinema on time. I and a big person would walk into the theater quietly during the middle of a movie and would often have to stand in the back because the seats were over sold. After the film finished it would almost immediately start to play again from the beginning. We would stay until the part we started with, then leave. The end of the viewing experience happens to be where we started off - not the story ending.

If I were a filmmaker this would probably upset me. Because it seems that a lot of what makes story telling, especially on film, a challenging task is having to deal with a format required to have a story beginning and ending - in that order. Having to suspend our belief with realism shoved into this capsule is difficult enough. And for the viewer to completely disregard this is not so nice. I would argue though that my mis-use of the cinema is a way to escape the artificiality which often the filmmaker is unable to overcome.

In real life, we have no experiences of story endings. Life continues on after the break up, the make up, the rescue, the reunification, the winning the girl, etc. Happily ever after doesn't cut it. Quite often, the designed story ending abruptly pulls us into the disappointing reminder that box-office sales is what drives it (ex. Garden State). The belief is that the mainstream just don't tell their friends to go see a film if they feel all weird in the end. Sadly, most prefer a vanilla feel-good closure. I just don't and I am in the minority.

Not having a feel-good ending doesn't preclude success (ex. Lost in Translation). It helps us mature, move past the children's storybooks we were trained with. Perhaps one day we as the audience will be able to choose alternative story paths. Of course this must be handled carefully, as it could compromise the integrity of the film itself. For now, I'll continue to try and make it to the cinema on time. However, I will still make the effort to leave at least five minutes before the end in order to save the film.

[Note: secretly make a deal with directors to provide subtle signals on the good ending, warning us before it is followed up by the feel-good hollywood happy ending.]

Image: Two black plastic forks, one spoon, unwrapped chopsticks, a napkin, and no knife.

Toward unfettering

2009-03-08T22:38:24Z

Sunday, I decided to throw myself out of the apartment again. Headphones plugged in both ends, but trying to tuck hidden the dangling cables under my jacket. I suspect the apparentness of the white wires which Apple uses as a branding maneuver (see ipod commercials) is the evil reason behind not letting it play music via wireless/bluetooth headsets. I've tried the sharpie route and don't recommend it. Headed toward the Mission for a seafood salad and then a coffee at four boarlets - seeking that one clear thought:

What I realize to be the ultimate summary for the cause of (a word that describes the negative) in everything might be so simple that it has fallen into the realm of the unexplainable. Perhaps I can try to write about it in particular contexts - which in time might paint a cohesive picture. What I would refer to as the triangulation approach. Perhaps. Here is a quick stab at the thought.

It is in how we maneuver within situations where we introduce concepts that try to arrest the dynamic; It is when we seek to create or understand something in a way which fixes it in place, or tries to cap it with an end; It is when we observe things devoid of its time and place; it is at these when we begin to falter.

And so, for the morning the coffee has fulfilled, the mind has been reset, the direction of the path - determined.

Image: A glass of Fernet, pair of Bentley glasses, notebook, and sketch paper.

rock hudson's former hang

2009-03-04T06:48:13Z

Walk down Ritch Street, the sun has just come out.

Click, click, click

it's the espresso grinder at Cento, a coffee to be.

It echoes brick to brick.

Mister landlord lost a finger.

An aneurism!

An aneurism in his finger.

They had to cut it off.

"But it could have been my BRAIN!" he says,

still cheerful. Grinning his way to the end.

The ghost of Rock Hudson giggles on our fire escape

and in the vestigial shower stall on our rooftop.

This building was once his favorite bath house.

Ten thousand homosexuals hummed

inside these walls and now

it's us; clicking away at the keys of silver laptops.

Impermanent efforts.

The Internet won't last.

It's a cut flower.

All of our efforts

wilting as fast as they can.

But we still love flowers

and coffee, and the steps up to the office;

blue felt and brown wood,

midday sun,

the ghost of Rock Hudson.

Evidence of the existence of dragons

2009-03-03T18:33:58Z

[Click image for full size]

Throughout many centuries scientists and inquisitive people alike have flocked to discuss the probability of the existence of dragons. This article is submitted for such activity. It showcases the first real evidence and also explains the steps required to get your own peek at these mysterious creatures.

"The existence of the Dragon is really the most captivating question in natural history. Fascinating (cough cough), arghlh excuse me, that it wasn't until digital webcam technology developed that we first gain opportunity to observe these creatures," said Dr. Edwina Maslowski, professor of (something) at Idaho State University.

The photograph above was taken on Tuesday, March 3rd at around 9:36am at the Particle office in San Francisco. This particular hunt made use of two MacBook Pro laptops by Apple, running Leopard operating systems. While connected through Wi-Fi, each launched an iChat video conference in full screen mode. Taking each laptop and grasping with both hands firmly, carefully face both screens up against each other. Experiment with different motions while chanting "here here little dragon, here here". Try to avoid blinking. If this is difficult for you, have a video screen capture software running concurrently.

Note that not every attempt will be successful even when done correctly as shown in this failed attempt from several years back using a wall projector and digital video camera.

"We are talking big stuff here" said Dr. Edwina Maslowski.

A prayer for twitter

2009-02-23T06:09:46Z

The magic of Twitter to me is in its minimal and ephemeral nature. However, I fear success (as typically defined by funded start ups in the community realm) will drive it toward a development path that is almost always feature driven: a feature list with business goals that use words like traffic, conversion, time spent, bounce rates, page hits, and stickyness etc. which I think are counter to sustaining said magic. As products and services grow up, it can't help but self-destruct. Beautiful, isn't it? Unless of course they can resist.

[Thought: If Twitter keeps heading toward becoming an alternative communication platform on the level of email and chat then wouldn't it only become more and more difficult to monetize? I can't ever imagine paying to use email.]

At the same time those that do resist features and enhancements or resist any form of perceived evolution at all is ripe to getting over taken by a new kid in town. That's a fine thing in the larger picture - renewal is completely natural to the web. But what if I don't want Twitter to go away just yet? I think the challenge is not only to have such resistance, but I'd even offer the suggestion to further subtract. And lots of prayers.

After having genuinely and actively used it for many months I have grown tired of it. Fatigue. Its lightness has been overtaken by the darkness known as Twitterrhea - "too many twitters per hour". Well sure I made the choice to click "follow me", so yes I've since done some pruning in my friends list. Well sure nothing forces me to visit the stream so often either, so yes I've since quit endlessly running Tweet Deck in my dock. But these are all negative steps in reverse of adoption. Perhaps consider yet another constraint on top of the 140 character limit: limit the ability to tweet to x times per day? And if it isn't realistic to be so brave, what are friendlier ways to guide/encourage best use?

Limiting the number of tweets per day could yield: higher quality and sincerity in content; reduced noise and fatigue during consumption; more visits; keeping the stream constantly on or plugged in; more valuable information/data; and perhaps even allow Twitter to charge micro-amounts for additional tweets.

Too much engagement is bad. What might often seem as user engagement, or in other words your best customers, is what will eventually result to users kicking it. For example, when public chat rooms first got popular we all knew someone who just spent way too much time living their lives in it. They eventually learned that such abuse wasn't healthy and quit it completely.

The product has to be small enough to fit into our lives in a big way, in a healthy way. Business goals should not drive the product to where it encourages usage that isn't sustainable on the long run. A product should seriously consider its long term relationship with a user and not base their goals around an eventual 'exit'.

I think we've so far seen that there is certainly room in people's lives for a way to publish bits of status. An active, public memoir. An archive of our memories. A peek into the separate lives within our ever growing address book. An entertaining break in between tasks. An easy way to dive into a room filled with thoughts, whispers, screams. A safe way to satisfy the stalker in you. It would be nice to see Twitter become more significant, survive the natural pull toward irrelevance.

If they have to put their energy (and funding) into something I'd say integrate well with all other popular products people already use and focus on developing a great brand.

And ultimately, the weaving question I always ask myself is: How can the online be more interesting in the offline, and the offline become more interesting in the online?

Image: Dead sunflowers I kept for years until the let-go, photographed here.

Lazy love

2009-02-16T18:33:52Z

Embrace it as truth that humans are busy and lazy. Not in a bad way. Many cool things come to mind when ideating solutions around laziness.

A clipping from an old entry dated Saturday June 4, 2005 - 05:37pm (PDT)

So have we gotten lazy? Or was it never fair in the first place? An example with cell phones... I don't ever have to remember my friends phone number because I have her saved and I simply have to remember one piece of information about her, her name, which is in my directory. That seems fair. A basic requirement in any friendship is to at least know the name of your friend. But if I don't want to remember even her name I can assign her to my speed-dial, so all I have to remember is a single number that I need to hold down to call. And if I am even lazier than that, I can choose to forget that speed dial number and just remember by visual mapping which button it is on my dial pad that triggers the speed dial (ex. That button on the bottom right). And if I don't even want to have to open my eyes to look for this button I can just, by feel, know that when I hold my phone with my left hand then its the button toward the area just below where my thumb naturally rests.