DIGITAL JUNGLE

Why do Millennials even go to events like their high school reunions? Thanks to social media, they're already up-to-date on all of their classmates' lives, right?  And between the Instagram photos, Foursquare and Facebook check-ins, up-to-the-second news on Reddit (literally), curated Twitter feeds, IMing,  and shopping online using convenient retail platforms like Amazon, it's a wonder they ever even go outside.  Yet in spite of all of these digital capabilities, Millennials are making it very clear that they actually crave much more tangible experiences; so much so that 72% would rather spend their money on an experience rather than on material items.  

It's a trend that exposes a generation, whose tendency is to text more than they talk, growing anxious to experience the "in the flesh" world to a point where they have made it a priority.  This discovery is opening up the door to new start-ups tapping into this growing desire and finding new ways to meet the demand of the Millennial market. Former New York Giants running back Tiki Barber's start-up Thuzio helps people and brands book athletes for a wide variety of fan experiences.  What's interesting is that Thuzio admits booking athletes for events or celebrations is not a new service.  But the new marketplace with price transparency and eCommerce has allowed expanded access to a larger audience, making it possible for an everyday fan to go watch a baseball game with your favorite athlete rather than just tweeting at them.

And the demand is growing.  Similar start-up IfOnly that also exclusively sell "experiences", has sold more than 2,000 experiences in it's first year of operation, claiming their revenue has doubled every quarter.  While not all of the experiences being offered through these companies are solely targeting Millennials, the vast majority of Millennials are willing to sacrifice buying products and are gravitating toward companies like Thuzio and IfOnly that will stimulate their senses through more robust, unusual experiences.  Even current popular digital behaviors like binge-watching streaming videos online has sparked a reaction from theaters to offer a more enjoyable experience, offering luxuries like cushioned recliners and on-demand food and beverage services at your seat to draw customers. 

It's worth asking how this will impact the future marketplace not only for Millennials, but also for the Digital Native generation following closely behind them. Soon, it may not be enough to just "sell someone a car".  Buyers may demand to drive the car on a race track before they sign on the dotted line.  And with the demand growing higher and higher, more and more brands may have to offer experiences along with their normal products or services just to entice Millennials.  It does seem a bit ironic that today's digital world has expanded our everyday capabilities and seems to connect us to every facet of our life, yet is driving us toward a new type of marketplace based on sensory experience due to the growing disconnection with the physical world.

It doesn't matter what industry you're in or what your day job is. Taking on the mindset and belief system of an artist is crucial for success today in many sectors. But today, artistry is associated with quixotic impracticality in a world where tangible, measurable benefits are tablestakes for success.

But consider the true role of an artist. Simply put, artists offer society new ways to contemplate and experience the world around them. One who sees opportunity and potential all around them. One who can begin with "the idea" — extrapolating and incorporating any materials needed in order to bring it to life. In other words, one who steals tactics, materials, images, sound, references, experiences and so on...

As both Picasso and Steve Jobs widely acknowledge, "good artists copy, great artists steal." What's the real distinction? One who copies has the ability to recognize success when they see it, yet no true understanding of the idea behind why its success exists. All that can be done is replicate and hope for the same fate. 

But a great artist is able to truly distinguish idea from execution — and can hold and manipulate an idea autonomously within their own mind. And here begins the original thinking: the artist conceives the concept (concept & conception are both linguistically linked) and is then free to borrow, or steal, from various sources until the full idea is realized. The ability to strip down an execution to its purest form allows us to pull from various sources in order to build something completely new. 

Why the rift in startup and creative culture is eroding design innovation

You’ve started a company. A digitally-oriented, disruptive as hell company. Now it’s logo design time. “Easy,” many entrepreneurs think. “We’ll see what’s working in the startup community and borrow from it. After all, we want to show people that we’re part of the club.”But the point of branding your new business is (in most cases) to visually demonstrate how innovative and original you are. Yet the design language many startups continue to adopt are regurgitations of what was groundbreaking 2008: curvilinear edges, 2-dimensional + feature-based layout, hyper-functional sans serif, subtle gradients. If this visual cliché is over 6 years old, why haven’t innovators changed or challenged it? Why has design slowed in a space known for “moving fast and breaking things”? Here are 3 reasons why:

Reason #1: “We need to look like a startup.” Today, startups must fit into 2 brands. The first brand is of course, their own. Unfortunately, the second is the “startup brand” itself (a symptom of the age of ubiquitous branding). Many new companies want to signal that they too are disciples of Dorsey and Zuckerberg — believing in the same religion, which they’ve injected into their own companies.

Reason #2: "We're Functional." Many entrepreneurs are driven by the fact that they “offer a product that solves a legitimate pain point in a logical way.” And it follows to reason that if one offers function, one must also look functional. Simple. Universal. Standardized with no thought to obstructive visual metaphor. But “functional descriptive” doesn’t mean people will remember you. In fact, many studies reveal that our most powerful memories (and our desire to share them) are related to an emotional response, not a purely rational one. How can your brand’s visual presentation elicit an emotional, memorable response from your audience?

Reason #3: “We’re a business. Not a bunch of artists.” Herein lies the largest barrier to innovative visual design within the startup community. The rift between creative and startup communities is famously endemic across the United States. San Francisco is home to many of the most influential tech companies in the world, while the Bay Area’s art and experimental design scene is based in Oakland. Another glaring example is Los Angeles: LA’s Westside is home to “Silicon Beach,” while East LA serves as the city’s creative enclave. Manhattan’s Silicon Alley versus Bushwick’s Netart culture. But really, if you’re creating something, you’re part of a larger creative community. And while business and functionality may be emphasized in one culture and aesthetics in another, the more that creators consider themselves united, the more each can benefit from the other.

Scientists used eye-tracking devices to map people's eye movement when looking at resumes, ads, people, etc. Interesting takeaways:

Anything after the first 5 Google listings is considered "below the fold" Digital banners are seemingly more and more useless On Facebook, photos catch the most eyes Put work experience first on a resume Guys gravitate toward crotches

From Style Coalition: 

An average Power Influencer reaches 248,000 uniques across their blog and social networks

Pinterest dominates other social platforms when it comes to number of followers

42% of Power Influencers have been blogging for 6+ years

53% of Power Influencers blog full-time

Sponsored blog posts are the top revenue source for Power Influencers

13% of Power influencers earn $100K+yearly

82% of Power Influencers saw revenue growth in 2013

Technology is making repeatable work a thing of the past. Welcome to the inefficiency economy. 

In high school and college I spent summers working for my dad, a stone mason who made a career building retaining walls, patios and fireplaces. While most of my friends were scooping ice cream, lounging in lifeguard chairs or stocking jeans at the mall, I was with my dad, learning valuable life skills like how to mix cement and swing a sledgehammer. My dad would tell me every chance he got that he wanted me to do something "better" with my life than what he was doing. The way he liked to put it, "Work from the neck up, not the neck down."

Stone masonry, real stone masonry, is plodding, exhausting work. It's physically tiring, sure, but it's also an intellectual challenge. Part sculpture, part landscape architecture, part engineering. It's a generalized expertise that can come only with years of practice. It's 10,000 hours with rocks. Anyone who has ever rightly used the term "craft" will understand what I'm getting at. 

My dad is 65 now and just about to retire to what I hope will be many remaining years of golf, gardening and evenings spent dozing while SportCenter flickers past. He didn't want to stop working, but the business is a lot different now. Where the craft of stone masonry remains a skill only a few can claim, the ability to create a retaining wall, patio or fireplace can now be performed by almost anyone. 

How? What happened? 

Technology, as it's wont to do, moved things forward. Composite stone, made in special kilns, happened. Composites are more or less like bricks. They work in simple, repeatable patterns, which means that anyone who can follow a pre-defined pattern can build a wall. It removes the craft from the work, lowering the price of entry for everyone. Meaning everyone gets a wall and no one needs a mason. 

And this is more or less the story of our modern economy. New technology sweeping away--or at least marginalizing--older means in the name of cheaper (and often better) delivery of goods or services. It's the way the world goes, but I'm not writing this to lament my dad's circumstances. 

What I am here to call out is the inherent inefficiency that's built into the highest-quality, most valuable work happening today. Getting to truly creative ideas is inefficient. There's no straight line. That's the nature of creativity. Even if it's not necessarily expensive, it takes a little longer to find the right opportunity and craft an appropriate solution. It takes trial and error. If you're looking for it, you'll see that the best work today in any industry is non-repeatable. That's the work that truly differentiates. And if you ask anyone involved, you'll probably learn that it took a lot of work to get there. So if you just need a wall, go with composites. But if you're looking for something that's different or unique, hire a mason. 

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You may have seen one of these floating around the office recently:

$.25 for every offense (using the word “millennial”)

In case you were wondering what it’s about, it’s simple: the planners here at Deutsch believe have a responsibility to our clients (and ourselves) to find better words to use than “millennial”.

In 2010, Pew Research defined Millennials as 18-29 year olds, suggesting that they are currently 22-33 years old. Merriam-Webster defines millennial as someone born in the 1980s or 1990s. Everyone’s favorite semi-legitimate source, Wikipedia defines millennial as anyone born between the early 1980s and early 2000s, citing a widespread discrepancy across researchers.So who are the Millennials then, really? And what do we call those who aren’t? Perhaps the problem is that we haven’t decided the best way to identify them – is it age or characteristics? Is it a combination of the two? Could there be a 50 year old millennial?

It’s not like this is a new challenge. Try looking up Generation X and you’ll find similar debates over when Gen X begins and ends. Big groups of people are understandably hard to define, because traits, behaviors, and attitudes are inherently subjective.

The real problem comes when a new group arises with different perspectives and attitudes and we prescribe a pre-existing label to them. And of course we would! It’s easier for us if we group them. We like order and understanding. And this is what we are starting to see happening with current teens.

You can argue that older Millennials are growing into a new life stage (home ownership, parenthood) and, therefore, are beginning to exhibit different traits than those on the younger end of the Millennial group (stereotypically living in their parent’s basement), but research is starting to show that teens have entirely different values than Millennials. The University of Missouri State released their annual report on Young Adults in early 2014. They see this rising generation as having a stronger affinity for global travel and exploration than the Millennials and a stronger desire to be a part of a movement for social good.

So why are we charging each other for using the term “Millennial”? It’s important for all of us to start working harder to get at the truth of what we’re saying. For example, instead of of saying “Millennial”, maybe we cite the age of the people we are really talking about, or suggest a value or characteristic we are trying to connect with. Instead of saying “Millennials” to refer to a subset of our client’s consumers, maybe we reference a specific persona or quality the target possesses.

And until we determine the best label for this new, upcoming generation, here are a few different suggestions to start trying on for size:

Generation C:  http://www.thinkwithgoogle.com/articles/meet-gen-c-youtube-generation-in-own-words.html

Generation Z:  http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Generation_Z

Post-Millennials: http://adage.com/article/special-report-tv-upfront/nickelodeon-targets-post-millennials-upfront/240045/

En Gens:  http://thefuturescompany.com/business-categories/generations-posts/engens/

They say a picture is worth a thousand words.  Well, sometimes the right meme can be worth a million shares and if you’re lucky, a million dollars.

People often mistakenly think that a meme can only be a replicable picture with text on it that everyday people use to convey a variation on a specific, nearly universal type message…like the fact that cats can’t spell. But technically, the term “meme” (coined in 1976 by Richard Dawkins) simply means a “package of culture” that is infinitely replicable and meant to be spread out to other cultures from the point of origin.  Pre-internet, this meant everything from regional slang to architecture were the types of memes that spread around the world, and still do. With the invention of the Internet, memes travel much faster and can have nearly limitless adaptations using all types of media.  It has also made it a source of messaging that is very attractive to another group: brands.

Many brands have taken advantage of the fact that these memes, whether an image, gif, video, or any other form depicting relevant pop or internet culture can deliver a message to a target demographic both cheaper and faster than traditional advertising. The ability to share through social media has made it a huge platform for pushing memes to brands’ audiences. A meme used by a brand may signify that they are knowledgeable and “in-the-know,” have a sense of humor, or maybe support a cause. 

The choice of meme by a brand can be just as important as their logo. People can sometimes associate a brand more accurately with a meme rather than an actual logo, which can make it a cultural phenomenon. We will probably never run out of the Dos Equis “Most Interesting Man in the World” memes since it can be applied to nearly every new event or situation. Being associated with a meme can mean the brand is trying to attract a particular demographic, such as Millennials, or cult classic following to help reach it’s desired target.

Reactive meme posts say a lot about a brand and the audience they are trying to reach.  These posts must be pushed out quickly to stay pertinent to the conversation.  Brands sometimes create their own meme in response to a cultural event, like the seemingly endless flow of memes that came from the World Cup when Luis Suarez bit an opposing player.  Memes like this insert brands into a relevant, current conversation that reaches millions fans while also helping them establish or maintain a consistent online voice.

Apps aren't just a little square on your phone. Today, app design has evolved into a perfect fusion of visual and experiential metaphor, all packaged as a lightweight "product." From a semantic perspective, its own name — "app" — prevents it from consideration as more than base function trapped in a square. But that's changing.

Design demigod Bruno Munari is known for distinguishing pure art from applied art, a critical example of how once functionality becomes part of the creative process, it results in "applied" — not "pure" art. It's ironic that Application — defined as computer software that causes a computer to perform useful tasks beyond the running of the computer itself — is actually about an additional layer of engagement. Is something not art if functionality is at its core? Illogic, emotion and metaphor make apps today memorable, magical. A good app retranslates a base interaction into an elevated moment. If experience is expression, then the digital form we regard as "apps" must be reconsidered as art. 

App As Extension of Self: Shared Physicality

As devices creep further into our physical space, essentially becoming an extension of our hands, content developed for mobile inherently takes on different from. Our humanity bleeds into our mobile interactions and the demands we make of technology. In the 1980s, the first applications were modeled off of pre-existing tasks and objects found on the desktop: calculators, typewriters, calendars. But in 2014, "apps" are based on something else: discreet human interacts, discovery and self-expression.

Devices take on the characteristics of what's around them

At some point within the past 10 years, desktop applications stopped evolving. Likely because  when we stopped evolving what lived on our desk, we stopped evolving what lived on our screen stuck on our desk. But because mobile is modeled upon a principle so connected to who we are as humans (mobility), mobile app design will continue to be informed by our whims, our needs and expanded environments. Apps are based on us, and we're increasingly basing on lives on what they allow us to do, they're continuously evolving, and evolving us. Mobile apps are more evolved than Desktop Apps. Because apps are products, not "sites" they tend to have more experiential consideration. They're more expressive — the SnapChat ghost, Jelly's Jellyfish — Paper, by Facebook. Visual poetry, experiential metaphor and vernacular combine in these experiences we've based upon ourselves. 

While some may be opposed to the idea of Bitcoin, others are doing all they can to adjust to the recent digital currency rush. Today, Bing, in partnership with Coinbase, announced it has added support for Bitcoin within its currency conversion tools. Simply put, you can now use Microsoft's search engine to see what the value of yournew-age money is in, say, dollars, pesos, euros or any of the other 50-plus currencies Bing has indexed. And it's all done in real time, too. No Bitcoin? No problem -- there's nothing wrong with entering some random numbers for fun's sake.