VOICES is about listening. It is easy to hear but difficult to acknowledge the voices around us. We can experience the sounds but not always the meanings. This blog hopes to adjust our collective filters, stimulating questions and promoting conversation about ideas both professional and personal.
How to See
How To See
by George Nelson
“Seeing things is an intellectual-aesthetic exercise which increases one’s inalienable capital: riches that can be accumulated without cost and, once acquired, cannot be lost or stolen.”
Originally written for the Department of Health, Education and Welfare in 1973, this book provides an insight to sight. Nelson instructs readers how to examine and explore images, objects and ideas in ways that transfer understanding and aptitude to the willing observer. The book additionally provides background into the creative process from one of this country’s contemporary renaissance men. How to See has been republished by Rod Forbes of Design Within Reach and is available only through their catalog or at dwr.com.
Outliers
Outliers
By Malcolm Gladwell
The latest book from Malcolm Gladwell, author of The Tipping Point and Blink is the best of the three. Outliers focuses on identifying success and failure in all of their forms and conditions. His book is smart, fun and disturbing. Readers will discover that the distance between winners and losers is about 10,000 hours of work plus the luck of circumstances and your birthday. There are several Aha! moments that if applied might change your life.
Measured in multiples of 100
Measured in multiples of 100 units, the picante of chili peppers finds itself at zero Scoville Heat Units for the basic green bell pepper, while the hottest of hot peppers, the Red Savina Habañero chili, ranks in at a whopping 350,000 SHU. We have developed and used a similar exponential process for delivering multiple design products and materials to multiple distribution points for diverse audiences simultaneously. This is the equivalent of having your chill and eating it too.
Measurement in some fields
Measurement in some fields is all about fairness. In billiards, there are tools used to encourage honest competition. One tool reshapes a pool cue’s felt tip to produce equivalent control over the movement of the cue ball for everyone. Some tools not only identify inequities but provide ways to reshape a situation to promote superior performance. Our Communication Planning System is a tool that provides control over how our client’s message gets to their clients.
Measurement can be about preserving
Measurement can be about preserving a species or protecting an industry. Lobstermen use a caliper to measure the length of the largest shell on a lobster’s back. If the shell fits inside the device’s opening, it is visually obvious that the lobster is too young to be taken and will go back in the water. We have a device for comparing proposed trademarks designs. Using the client’s messages and audiences as factors, the best trademark will become as visually obvious as a 15-pounder from Maine.
Measurement is always important
Measurement is always important, especially when it comes to preventing disaster. A simple plastic device was designed to simulate the dimensions of a child’s throat. If a toy or part of a toy fits inside the device it is a choking hazard. While few other measuring devices are as critical, our Brand Quotient tool can also prevent disasters by evaluating and measuring how well a particular idea, name, image or message will perform in terms of building a brand relationship with its audiences.
Perception is the ability to develop
Perception is the ability to develop ideas on command is impossible if not downright ridiculous. Can ideas be hatched like so many eggs in a nest? Creativity and imagination are not always just the product of talent or inspiration. Big ideas are grown, nurtured, protected, funded and fully explored before they are born. Creativity is not just a province of artists. We have helped our clients develop and engage their own creativity to work in collaboration with us and others with positive results.
Perception of human patterns
Perception of human patterns tells us that over our lifetime we change physically more dramatically than we change emotionally. Observation reinforces the idea that the patterns and choices we make in our younger years stay with us throughout our lives and influence the decisions and choices we make as adults. By recognizing the forces that remind us of our basic wants and needs, we have an opportunity to shape messages that connect us all at a very primal level.
Missives
Opportunities can and do appear in many different forms at different times. While all opportunities are important, they are not all equally important. To identify which opportunities have the greatest potential requires a clear, uncolored view of what success will look like and a process in place designed to accomplish the task at hand. Success is inevitable when the criteria for evaluating each opportunity is established in advance. Choosing to be prepared is a sign of real leadership.
Noted & Notable
Drive: The Surprising Truth About What Motivates Us
By Daniel Pink
Daniel Pink, the working man’s Malcolm Gladwell, has written a new book called DRIVE: The Surprising Truth About What Motivates Us. Like his first book A Whole New Mind, Pink points out connections between the obscure and the obvious. His book pits the latest scientific discoveries about the mind against the outmoded wisdom that claims people can only be motivated by the hope of gain and the fear of loss. Pink packages ideas into applications providing employers and employees with the methods and the means to get more of what they want, the way they want it. Don’t let the cover design scare you off. This is career-changing stuff.
Have a New Kid by Friday: How to Change Your Child’s Attitude, Behavior & Character in 5 Days
By Dr. Kevin Leman
In Dr. Kevin Leman’s book Have a New Kid by Friday: How to Change Your Child’s Attitude, Behavior & Character in 5 Days, he insists that the only way to correct bad behavior in children is to change your reactions to their behavior. Anyone who has dealt with a strong-willed child knows that it is no easy task to turn bad behavior around. Bestselling author and psychologist Dr. Kevin Leman can help to make a difference. With his signature wit and encouragement, Dr. Leman offers hope and real, practical, doable strategies for regaining control and becoming the parents our children need. Not to say that badly behaved adults are like children but the application of Dr. Leman’s ideas to adult relationships with similar issues is a bonus.
Sandy Koufax: A Lefty's Legacy
By Jane Leavy
You don’t need to be a fan of professional baseball to appreciate to a true professional. Jane Leavy’s book Sandy Koufax, A Lefty’s Legacy has more to do with the man and his choices that any game. Professional sports are all about the numbers. In his last four seasons Sandy Koufax’s numbers were the best ever. With a career half as long as the average pitcher, Koufax set a standard for performance that was twice as successful as any pitcher of his era. However, Koufax the person transcends the player by keeping the game he loved in perspective with who he was.
One example: In 1965, Sandy Koufax refused to pitch in Game One of the World Series because it was Yom Kippur, a Jewish holy day. Koufax’s decision and his pitching brilliance remain a source of pride among devout American Jews, even those who aren’t baseball fans. Unable to sustain that same level of performance for health reasons, Sandy retired one year later at the peak of his career. He became the youngest player ever to be inducted into baseball’s Hall of Fame. Sandy Koufax defined success on his own terms, using is own standards.
Scorecasting: The Hidden Influences Behind How Sports Are Played and Games Are Won
By Tobias Moskowitz and L. Jon Wertheim
Much of what goes on in sports can be explained by incentives, fears and a desire for approval. You just have to know where to look. Scorecasting is the sports equivalent of Freakonomics. Tobias J. Moskowitz and L. Jon Wertheim have written the most important and fascinating sports book in years. Athletes and coaches are encouraged to challenge conventional strategies with calculated risks, producing unconventional results. Just like in life, a little risk is usually a very worthwhile thing.
The Nine: Inside the Secret World of the Supreme Court
By Jeffrey Toobin
Jeffrey Toobin’s book, The Nine: Inside the Secret World of the Supreme Court, explains for the novice and explores for the devotee the mysteries behind the black robes. It articulates the rise of the conservative movement through the legal world and its acceleration in 2005 with the death of Justice Rehnquist and resignation of Justice O’Connor within a few months of each other. This is a fascinating story about complex and brilliant jurists who are equally spoiled and elevated by the human condition.
All Facts Considered: The Essential Library of Inessential Knowledge
By Kee Malesky
What is plastic soup? How long is a New York minute? What building did Elvis leave last? Who were the Olmecs, and the Eight Immortals? Get the answers to these and many other vexing questions in NPR librarian Kee Malesky’s compendium of fascinating facts on subjects ranging from history to science to the arts. It’s the ideal gift for every inquiring mind that wants to know.
The Art of the Idea: And How it Can Change Your Life.
By John Hunt
John Hunt’s unassuming book is all about how to see, the art of observation and what we gain by taking the time to experience the everyday in new and unexpected ways. This is not a “feel good” book, something left over from the 60s, but a beautifully written and illustrated owner’s manual for our own senses. Instructive? Yes. Inventive and imaginative? For sure. Chapters like Lemmings Have Plans Too and Expediency is Not an Idea are but a few subjects worthy of your time.
A Fine Line: How design strategies are shaping the future of business
By Hartmut Esslinger / founder of Frog Design
After getting past Hartmut Esslinger's (Frog Design) sometimes condescending-sounding manner, he has a great deal to say worth hearing. Filled with process-driven strategies that are almost clairvoyant, reading the book is like hanging on to a bucking bronco. Sony, Apple and Lufthansa did and gained financially and culturally.
Outliers
By Malcolm Gladwell
The latest book from Malcolm Gladwell, author of The Tipping Point and Blink is the best of the three. Outliers focuses on identifying success and failure in all of their forms and conditions. His book is smart, fun and disturbing. Readers will discover that the distance between winners and losers is about 10,000 hours of work plus the luck of circumstances and your birthday. There are several Aha! moments that if applied might change your life.
A Whole New Mind
by Daniel H Pink
Daniel Pink’s book A Whole New Mind, Why Right-Brainers will Rule the Future is worth your time. Left-brain skills (logical, analytical, sequential), while still necessary, are becoming a commodity, Pink argues, while right-brain talents (artistic, empathic, more about context than content) will be at a premium in the future. Pink writes with charm and humor about subjects that heretofore were rarely, if ever, charming or funny.